


And All That Road Going

by callmelyss, GenerallyHuxurious (GallifreyanOmnishambles)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Sex, Attempt at Humor, Crimes & Criminals, Feelings, Gambling, Kylo Ren Has Issues, M/M, Outdoor Sex, Recreational Drug Use, Road Trips, Self-Discovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-17 00:14:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 37,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16964142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmelyss/pseuds/callmelyss, https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallifreyanOmnishambles/pseuds/GenerallyHuxurious
Summary: Kylo regards the pair of them. Phasma’s pale hair haloes her paler face; Hux’s eyes are dark, unfathomable in the shadows. The city’s lights glitter behind them, beckoning them all back, but neither spares a glance that way, at that luminous oasis. They’re both looking at him, expectant, and at the road ahead. And it would be much easier to do this alone; he didn’t want to involve other people, least of all two strangers he’s just met.—Kylo Ren, AKA Ben Solo, the son of a prominent California Senator and a mechanic, flees his past and the authorities, trying to leave both behind in the Nevada desert.Along the way, he picks up a cynical waitress and a sharp-tongued con artist in need of their own new beginnings. Together, in his father's '77 Plymouth Voyager, they find more than the road between the edge lines.





	1. San Francisco—Bakersfield—Vegas

**Author's Note:**

> We're so excited to share our Big Bang project with you, kylux fandom. Art by Gen, story (and unnecessary Kerouac references) by Lyss. Kylo's bad attitude and Hux's snark are entirely their own. 
> 
> Or does it all belong to Millie? Difficult to say.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo leaves California.

“ _—as the inquiry continues into numerous ethics violations by San Francisco-based megacorp, First Order Industries, along with rumors of insider trading and corporate espionage, new charges of influence-peddling have arisen, including implications against startup financier Ben Solo, notably the son of California senior Senator and presidential hopeful, Leia Organa. Solo has been connected to First Order founder and CEO, Clement Snoke, in the company’s accounting records and is currently being sought by federal and state authorities for questioning…”_

Kylo switches off the radio and leans on the gas pedal, urging the Mustang on. It rumbles, sleek, black, and satin-smooth on the highway, every one of its 480 horses at his disposal. He’s heading south and slightly east; Rte. 5 stretches flat and wide in front of him, slicing down the San Joaquin Valley, all red earth and patchy green and rows of pastel houses. The city has disappeared from his rearview now, the coastal mountains eclipsing the bay. He may as well be in another world. The steep streets and bright colors of the place he knows best—where he’s spent most of his life, from the sky blue house of his childhood to the downtown penthouse he called home until today—have vanished as though they never existed.

If only it were that easy.

He barely had time to pack before he skipped town, was tossing clothes into a duffle when Leia called. She didn’t do it to warn him; that had been Poe, one of her aides and a childhood friend and one-time fling. Kylo doesn’t know that his mother would have bothered to speak to him at all if the story hadn’t broken today, if it wasn’t all over the 24-hour news cycle and social media. Maybe she only wanted to make sure he stayed put, went quietly, and didn’t embarrass her more than he already had. _It’s best if you cooperate, Ben_ , she told him, voice grave over the speakerphone as he rummaged in his closet, flinging shirts and jeans onto the bed. _Give them what they want to know and let the courts decide where responsibility lies._

 _I’m not getting you out of this,_ she didn’t say, but he heard it. _This is your mess, and you can face the consequences for once_.

Never mind if it wasn’t for her, if she wasn’t who she was, well. Snoke probably never would have blinked twice in his direction, that’s for fucking sure.

There’s no reason, either, to think anyone will go easy on him because of her. If anything, the opposite’s probably true—she’s acquired more than her share of political enemies during her career, and some of them are bound to serve on whatever investigatory committee rakes him over the coals, a half-circle of withered-cheeked old men questioning his life, his choices, his very existence, calling him Mr. Solo like that's his name. _It’s a crackdown, Benny_ , Poe warned him. _They’re not going to be happy until someone high profile is behind bars. Until they’ve made an example, understand? That’s the easiest way for them to save face_. And good odds it won’t be Snoke’s neck in the noose, not when he has more lawyers on his payroll than a D.C. brothel. 

 _Let the courts decide_ , Leia said, as though this would be at all fair, as though the game isn't rigged. Kylo huffs a laugh. Like hell he will. No, he just needs some time to figure this out, to plan his next move—and somewhere to lie low for a while.

 

* * *

 

The sun’s starting to dip behind the Bakersfield hills when he reaches his father’s house. It’s as much an antique car lot as it is a homestead, with at least a couple dozen vintage models in various states of restoration parked on the cracked earth and dead grass. Han’s long legs and cowboy boots are sticking out from under the belly of a cherry red ’56 Plymouth Fury when he arrives. He slides out after he hears Kylo’s door slam but he doesn’t seem at all surprised to see him standing there. Takes his time getting up, wiping his hands carefully on a rag. The fading sunlight flares against his glasses and obscures his eyes, but his mouth quirks in a tired half-smile. “Hey there, kiddo. That’s what you’re driving these days?” 

“It’s a good car, Dad. And I got it new.” He accepts a short hug, more backslapping than actual embrace, and cranes his neck, searching. “Where’s Uncle Chewie?” Probably he wouldn’t miss his father’s almost-seven-foot partner-in-crime if he was around, but he might be conked out in the backyard hammock or inside making dinner.

“Out with Lando picking up tacos. Get you a beer?”

“No, thanks.” Kylo shoves his hands in his pockets and ducks his head. He lets his hair fall over his forehead before he makes eye contact, a habit leftover from adolescence when he discovered it was easier to look his father in the eye this way. For a moment, they do simply that: regard each other. Han’s face is more weathered than last he saw him, not unlike the dry California clay. His hair’s whiter, too. That was—six months ago. He’d come into the city to deliver a car, a custom job for some tech-bro baby billionaire. They had dinner. Didn't talk much.

Han grunts; he plucks a brown bottle from the dirt and takes a swig. “And to what do I and humble Kern County owe the honor of this visit?”

“Come on,” Kylo scoffs. He'd rather not get into it. “You have to have heard by now, even out here. I know you own a radio at least.” He kicks the dirt, displacing gravel, a few stubbly blades of grass.

“Maybe I want to hear it from you.” Han leans back against the Fury, waiting.

So it’s that, then. No breaks. No getting off easy. He takes a deep breath, then lets it all out through his mouth in a rush. “Look, it wasn’t—I didn’t do it on purpose, okay? I mean, I wasn’t _trying_ to break the law. But he said it was harmless, that everyone shares secrets, that it’s practically expected. How it's done. And it’s not like I gave him anything that good either, just some of the regulatory stuff Leia’s people have in development for next year. What they’re likely to target. _Anyone_ could have figured that out. I shouldn’t end up in a jumpsuit for it.”

He hates the expression on Han’s face, that wincing around his eyes, how his mouth flattens. _Oh kid, how could you_ , he doesn’t need to say, has never needed to say, his disappointment always milder and more hard-won, and therefore more painful, than Leia’s. Han didn’t care when he dropped out of Stanford—or when he barely cleared UCLA. He didn’t care when he quit foundation work or filmmaking or teaching, and he didn’t care when his first investment tanked, or his second, or his third. He didn’t care when any number of his relationships fizzled, even the ones with people he'd liked. He had little room to criticize as he saw it, Kylo understood, and Han Solo might be a deadbeat and a swindler and a part-time father and a shitty husband, but he wasn’t a hypocrite, and his son had always appreciated that about him.

“So you did it, huh? Gave Snoke the goods—you’re sure?” he asks, like he’s hoping Kylo will correct himself or admit he was joking.

“What the fuck do you care anyway?” Heat swells in his chest, that anger always close by, always easy. Convenient. It jumps for him now, eager, surging out of his lungs and into his voice. “You never gave a damn whether a job was legal or not.”

Han shakes his head. “You’re not me, Ben.”

And the funny—the awful, wretchedly funny thing is he had wanted to be, for years. As a kid, there was nothing he would have liked better than to be like his father, to spend his time fixing cars, coaxing them back into working, to possess the sure touch he has with them. To be himself, the way Han always has been, not constantly having his picture taken, whether he wanted or not, not subject to his mother’s fundraisers, to wearing itchy collars and starched pants, having to be _clean_ and _quiet_ and _orderly_ , never complaing that he was tired and wanted to go home. Not forever wondering who his friends really were and who just wanted something from Leia Organa's kid. When Han left, he had asked—begged—to go with him, and Kylo will never forget the look in his eyes when he ruffled his hair and said, _Sorry, kiddo, that’s a bad idea._

“Kylo,” he corrects him now, more weakly than he means. The light is going hazy orange around them, burnishing his father’s face. The shadows lengthen. “My name is Kylo.” The one he picked for himself, for the anonymity, he told everyone, but really because he was sick to death of all the others that had never fit.

“Kylo,” Han repeats, slowly, like the pronunciation is difficult. “Sorry.”

“I didn’t—it wasn’t malicious, you know? I wasn't trying to hurt anyone. I was just helping a friend.” It had seemed that way, at least, that Snoke might be a friend to him, someone who understood him and appreciated his talents, _his_. He said he saw potential in Kylo, that he reminded him of his grandfather, Anakin, decades gone now. “And besides, that’s how the political world operates: some people have resources, and other people have information. They’re reasonable exchanges.” He hates how his voice rises at this last, almost a whine. _Everyone does it_ , he doesn’t bother to repeat, knowing how his father will respond.  _Don't make it right, does it._

“I’m guessin’ your mother sees it a little different. Did you talk to her, by chance?”

Kylo looks away, rubbing his nose. “Leia doesn’t give a damn what happens to me. She only cares about what this means for her career—and 2020.” It’s no secret that his mother has presidential ambitions, another reason her opponents will be slavering over the scandal and the opportunity to put his head on a pike, especially. He’s always been her weak spot, and everyone knows it. “She’ll let them tear me to pieces so she can get applauded for being  _objective_.”

“Don’t talk about her that way,” Han snaps, before his demeanor mellows again. He picks a bit of nothing off the hood of the Fury. “She’s done a lot for you over the years, whether you realize it or not. Way fucking more than I ever did.”

The bitterness in his voice surprises Kylo; he never imagined his father as the type to have regrets. “I’m only a liability to her,” he says, more plaintive. “I’m on my own here, Dad.” _You’re all I have_.  _Don't you care?_

His father shakes his head. “I’m not sure if you really believe that, kid, but I think you understand the consequences of all this. So the question becomes: what are you gonna do about it?” He clears his throat, feeling, maybe, the expectation of Kylo’s gaze on him. He’s always hesitated to give advice beyond the merits of minding one’s own damn business and knowing basic engine maintenance. “The way I see it, you got two options. You can face this head on, go in with your chin up and say your piece, maybe testify against this Snoke character and strike some kinda deal. Or you can delay the inevitable, see how far you can run before the law catches up. But I gotta tell ya: the country’s not as big as it used to be.”

Kylo stares at him, disbelieving, shock hitting him like a sucker punch. _That's it?_ “But that’s—that’s _bullshit_ ,” he shouts before wheeling away, flinging his hands up. Dust billows around him and resettles on his sneakers, the cuffs of his jeans. “That’s. You—you never would’ve done that in the old days, when it was you and Chewie and Lando. You never would’ve gone down without a _fight_ , Dad. What the fuck. That's all you've got—fucking give up?”

 

Han doesn’t respond, only watches him. _You’re not me, Ben._ The silence feels worse than anything else he might say, and Kylo hates that he can feel it, those knowing eyes, that placid expression even without turning his head.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he repeats, louder now, and tugs at his hair. He thought that here, at least, he might find a sympathetic ear and maybe some guidance about getting off the grid. “I just needed a place to think and—you’re not any better than she is—and what am I supposed to _do? I didn’t do anything that bad, for fuck’s sake_.” He wishes he had something to throw, that he could take a crowbar to one of these rust heaps, the life Han’s built for himself away from them.

But there’s something else, in the distance, a high wail. _Sirens_. He turns back to his father, knowing the hurt’s all over his face. Unable to help it. That’s not a knack he has, not where his family's concerned.

Han looks as startled as he feels; he extends a hand, placating. “B— _Kylo_. It's probably nothing. And I wouldn’t rat you out, you know that.”

Kylo ignores him. Maybe he wouldn’t and maybe it is nothing, unrelated, but they’re there, regardless, unmistakable. He moves back towards his car. Stops. Studies the slick curves of it, distinctive, and his custom license plate. Plenty of traffic cameras between here and San Francisco. Plenty more wherever he’s going next, and he’ll. He’ll think of _where_ when he gets out of here, but he _needs_ to get gone and fucking quickly. He snatches his bag from the trunk of the Mustang, slams it down again, and scans the lot. No telling what’s in working order, knowing Han, who tends to tinker with projects piecemeal. Any one of these could fall apart somewhere down the road. Then, it catches his attention: the Voyager.

He has a thousand memories of that van: lying in the back seat during a night drive and watching the stars go by overhead; the long ride to his grandfather’s funeral in Missoula; letting his hand drag out at the window as they coasted down Rte. 1, the Pacific brilliant and blue and endless beyond; pretending to sleep while his parents argued in the front seat, in those two years before the split; Han driving him to college, his boxes piled on the back seats, the stilted conversation between them; the last time they went camping out at Joshua Tree, him and Han and Lando and Chewie, right after he turned twenty-one, and Lando gave him peyote.

Kylo turns on his heel and makes for the Voyager. It’s as ugly as it ever was, burnt orange with a cream band, blocky and inelegant and snub-nosed. But his father loves that van, despite decades of razzing from everyone who’s ever laid eyes on it, most commonly referred to as _that hunk of junk_ , and he’s kept it in mint condition, as good as it was new in ’77, maybe better. It’ll run, that’s for damn sure. 

“Kid?” Han asks, maybe not for the first time. Kylo tosses him the Mustang’s keys.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Keep it,” Kylo tells him. He tries the driver’s side door on the Voyager. Of course, Han’s never locked it, and why bother? No one would want to steal it. And the keys are right in the ignition where they always are, too. “Or sell it. I don’t give a shit.”

“Where are you gonna go, Ben?” His father’s not making a move to stop him; he’s only standing there, holding the keys to the Mustang and watching him. 

Kylo adjusts the rearview mirror. Grins when he sees the dice hanging there, craps dice Han had bronzed years ago after an especially good day at the tables. _Lucky dice_. The beginning of an idea creeps in: bright lights in the desert, primary colors on green felt, chips emblazoned with famous names, legendary names, machines chiming, flashy graphics, jackpots. “I’ll figure it out,” he says before he rolls out of the lot, leaving Han standing in a cloud of churning dust.

He dumps his phone out the window as he goes.

 

* * *

 

Kylo drives most of the night, pushing deeper into the Mojave as the sun sets, the desert massive and still and ancient around him, the sky riotous with stars, more than he ever sees on the coast, the darkness unrelieved only by passing traffic and the occasional pinpricked lights of towns in the distance. Solitude settles into his bones, steadies his restlessness. No one has followed him. He’s alone with the murmur of the drive. The Voyager doesn’t go as fast as his Mustang would and it sucks down gas like an alcoholic with cheap whiskey, but there’s something comforting about the reliable chugging of its engine.

Around two in the morning, still some hours out from the city, he pulls off the highway and crawls into the back seat to sleep a while, his cheek pressed to scuffed vinyl and balding saddle-cloth, jacket draped over him. He wakes as the light coming through the windows begins to gray. Stretches and continues. Only stops for gas and to wash his face, brush his teeth, change his shirt. He looks haggard, hair wild, bags under his eyes and a day’s worth of stubble shadowing his cheeks. But that won’t seem so out of place on the Strip. Might be useful, even—he has the face of a man who's out on his luck.

Then again, he is.

Vegas doesn’t rise out of the vast nothing of the desert so much as it stretches, dingy, in either direction, heavy and gray and tired, morning sunlight glinting dully off the distant buildings. Miles of sprawl separate the city’s edge from the center and the Strip, and he’s anxious to be out of the car halfway through, the agitation of having arrived yet _not_ arrived pricking at his skin. Finally, his dry mouth and aching stomach make his decision for him. He hasn't eaten since yesterday morning. He pulls off at the first place he sees: a drab, squarish, once-white building with a neon DINER sign rotating sluggishly on the roof. _Delilah’s_ curls across the front window in chipped script. The parking lot is mercifully empty.

Han’s left the Voyager about as full of garbage as he remembers, but Kylo finds them eventually, the stack of neatly rolled maps under the rear seat. He plucks out three, labeled NV, ID, and MT on the upper corners in Chewie’s blocky print, and brings them into the diner with him.

The interior is as deserted as the parking lot, only one waitress leaning against the counter and reading a newspaper. Kylo doesn’t realize how tall she is until she straightens, hearing the bell chime over the door. In her white plastic pumps, she towers over even him as she approaches, heels clicking on the linoleum. “Table for one, is it?” she asks, an unlikely posh British accent rounding her vowels.

“Yeah,” Kylo agrees, after a stunned beat. Can’t help but ask: “Er, you wouldn’t be Delilah, would you?” It’s the only explanation he can fathom, that somehow this Amazon in her Pepto-Bismol pink and white-trimmed uniform is the owner. Because otherwise— _how? Why?_ _Who could have made her?_

The woman stabs one finger at her name tag, which reads PHASMA. As improbable as the rest of her. She gestures for him to follow, and he hurries to obey, fearing her impatience, dreading her wrath even more. He doesn’t always know what to do with women, especially the kind who seem to want something from him, who giggle and squeeze his biceps and blink up coyly through their lashes. Who smell amazing and know where all the best clubs are and understand all the rules to every game he never quite learned how to play. He’d thought he preferred women like that once, bubbly women, women as antithetical to Leia as they could be. They were fun; they made him feel good.

But then there are women like this, women Kylo instinctively recognizes as forged from the same armor as his mother, and although he knows they interest him not at all sexually or romantically—as in fact, few women really do long-term—there’s a kind of _awe_ he feels for them, in the old sense of the word, a divine terror. Which is only to say, again, that when Phasma directs him to sit, he does so and quickly. Thanks her for the menu and means it.

“Coffee?” she asks. Drawling. Bored.

“Yes, please.” He needs it, after his short night’s sleep in the desert. “And could I borrow a pen?”

She eyes him, skeptical, but fishes one out of her apron pocket. Retrieves a cup and the coffee for him before leaving him with the menu and resuming her post at the counter. Kylo winces when she frowns down at her newspaper, intent, but she doesn’t look back up at him or say anything or otherwise move. _Maybe she hates the weather forecast_ , he tells himself. _Calm down_. He glances around the diner, feeling exposed out of the car.

Either the decorator intended the place to be retro, or no one’s updated the furnishings since the sixties. Everything that isn’t checkered linoleum or edged in chrome or covered in red vinyl is painted a cool mint green. A pastry case glows under the front counter; a jukebox lurks in one corner, unplugged, its yellow and blue tubes unlit. The only concession to modernity appears to be a flat screen T.V., but people probably check up on the races even out here. Still, it’s as good place as any.

He unrolls the Nevada map first, spreads it across the tabletop, the ends curling over the sides. He can see where his father and Chewbacca have made notes in faded pencil, leaving tick marks and x’s to indicate rest stops, towns where friends of theirs live, etc. Way out in the middle of nothing, he sees a note that says _Ben’s place_ , which must be a reference to his namesake, because he’s never been to that part of the state and doesn’t intend to go now. It’s easy enough to plot his route following his father’s notes, avoiding I-15, which would take him east and through too many population centers. It’s a little like Han’s there with him, guiding him through it, like he did when Kylo was younger and he took him on road trips, all over the coast, to vintage auto shows and to pick up projects and rare parts. _See, the best route isn’t always the most direct route, kiddo_.

He takes a long sip of his coffee, letting the hot liquid ease the lump in his throat.

“Planning a trip?” Phasma asks when she returns, pad and pen in hand. 

“Something like that,” Kylo says and starts to re-roll the map. “I’m going to hit the Strip first, though.” It’ll take several days to get where he’s going in the Voyager, and he’ll need money for gas and supplies, plus more to tide him over when he reaches his destination. It’s a risk going there—if his mother remembers it, he’ll be fucked, but it’s the only place he can think of to go, and few people know of it, at least.

“Oh, a gambler, are you,” she says—and it’s not a question. She must utter the same dry sentence a hundred times a day. She doesn't roll her eyes, but he can hear it all the same. “Well, may Lady Luck smile on your dice, little cartoon cherries, etc., etc. What’ll it be?”

He orders eggs and toast, wanting to save most of what’s in his wallet for the casinos and not daring to use his credit cards. He had a little money on hand when he left his apartment, a couple hundred dollars at most, some of that already spent on gas, and it’ll take work to build it up into anything respectable. Fortunately, luck won’t come much into it. He is still his father’s son, after all.

He’s halfway through his breakfast and tracing his way along the eastern border of Idaho when a flicker of movement through the window attracts his notice. Two police cruisers pull into the parking lot outside, _Las Vegas Metropolitan Police_ printed in block letters across their doors. Enormous seven-pointed stars bear the city’s name and seal. Kylo freezes. There’s no way they won’t see him, empty as the diner is, and even if he ducks out now, he’ll have to pass right by them. Before he can do anything, to his surprise, Phasma crosses the room in three long strides, flips the closed sign and locks the front door.

Then, she slides into the booth across from him. “So,” she says airily. “We’re in a bit of a pickle, aren’t we?”

His mouth works. No lies come easily to his tongue. 

Two sets of officers are climbing out of their cars and approaching the front door.

She pushes her newspaper over the table and taps a blurry picture of him leaving a restaurant in North Beach with one manicured nail. “That’s you, yes? Ben Solo. And above the fold, too. You’re pretty big news.” 

He shakes his head. “My name’s Kylo. I didn’t—”

“I don’t give a damn what you did,” Phasma cuts him off. “Or what your name really is. I _would_ love to get clear of this shit-drip of a town, however. And I imagine you’re in the position to help with that, having a car and out-of-state maps and all. So we could help each other, maybe. If you wanted.”

The last thing he needs is a passenger, but _shit._ The cops are peering through the front door, apparently perplexed by the closed sign. And are they looking at them now? Thank god the windows are frosted. “I can come back,” Kylo tries. “I’ll bring you money, okay? Ten percent of what I win. So you can get—a bus ticket or whatever.”

“Twenty percent. I'd rather board a plane. And I'll come with you, thanks. Now.”

"Come with me?" He drags both hands through his hair, trying to stall, trying to _think_. “Are you kidding? How do I know you’re not some kind of sociopath?”

“You don’t,” she acknowledges with a sharkish smile that does nothing to allay his fears. “But the real question is: what choice do you have? And the answer is none. Not much time to dither either.”

The officers are definitely looking in at them now, cupping their hands around their eyes. 

“Shitfuckshit,” Kylo hisses, sinking slower in his seat. “Okay, you know what, fine, just get me out of here, please, before they notice me.”

“You should have at least done something different with your hair if you didn’t want to be recognized.” She slides out of the booth and makes for the kitchen as she unties her apron, heels clattering. Pauses to snatch the tip jar off the front counter. “Well, come on, then. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

He follows her out through the kitchen, where a lone cook, a skinny olive-skinned kid with dark, curly hair, is perched on a stool, reading a paperback.

“Doph,” Phasma says to him, stuffing a twenty in his shirt pocket. “Be a lamb and open the front door in about a minute, would you? And better call Edie, I’m out for the rest of the day. Also, I quit.”

The cook stares after them, stunned, as she sweeps Kylo out the back, retrieving her bag as she does. She gestures for him to be quiet, the two of them pressed against the diner’s back wall behind the dumpster, which reeks of old grease and rotten fruit. They hear, distantly, the chime of the front door as it opens, and hurry out to the Voyager.

“You came here in that thing?” Phasma asks, appalled, staring at it.

“Hey,” Kylo protests. “You want a ride or not?” And if he thought he could get away with it, he would jump into the van now and leave her standing here. But she’s seen his face and his too-distinctive transportation and there are four interested officers of the law inside she could explain all of this to; he wouldn’t make it a mile away before the flashing lights caught up with him. Besides, he’s not entirely sure he _can_ get away from Phasma. She doesn’t look like she would be at all opposed to or incapable of tackling him.

But she concedes the point and climbs into the passenger seat, buckling in. “This better not be a murder van.” 

“It’s not a murder van.” Kylo rolls his eyes. _Although it has almost certainly been a sex van_ —a likelihood he’s vigorously ignored since reaching adolescence. He really doesn’t want to think about what’s happened on the seats where he’d slept so innocently as a child.

 _What? We cleaned them after,_ Han said, the one time he made the mistake of bringing it up. _That’s orgy 101, kid, lots of Lysol._

Impossible to know if he’d been ribbing him. Probably he was. Hopefully.

He shakes off the memory and starts the ignition. “Let’s get out of here,” he says, as much to himself as Phasma.

“Indeed. Onward.”

 

* * *

 

Even mid-morning, tourists crowd the Strip, flushed and sweating and already tired, some of them still suffering the indignities of the night before. Kylo passes more than one person with body glitter clinging to their skin, their clothes, their hair, their _teeth_. They stagger down the walk, zombie-like, barely aware of their surroundings, eyes red and wrecked. One swaying frat boy, part of a dick inscribed on his forehead in Sharpie, almost knocks into Kylo in his haste to find a trash can. Pukes loudly.

If he had the time, there are countless easy marks out in the bustle; he could make ten times out here with the Hawaiian shirts and khaki shorts what he will at the tables. But time isn’t on his side.

The Strip itself isn’t as impressive as it is at night, all bold colors and bright lights, but it is as much itself now with the palm trees drooping over the paths and the frothy jets of the fountains and the crass sparkle of the buildings under the blue sky, if not more so. It’s arranged to draw people in and it does; even he feels a certain tug through the first casino’s doors, beckoning him, the omnipresent whisper of the place: _Anything is possible here_. It’s the Tropicana, with its famous glass-front lobby and retro construction, although the interior is as lavish as the newer casinos. Kylo sets himself up with some chips and seeks out the low-stakes blackjack tables.

There’s an art if you’re going to cheat, he knows from his father and Uncle Lando’s careful tutelage, especially if you’re going to cheat in Vegas, where they have detecting swindlers down to a science, where they can slow your eye movement and analyze your facial expression from every angle and count the number of times you blink. The first trick is to be a small fish in a big pond. Raking in the chips at flashy high-stakes poker is an easy way to end up in the Clark County lock-up. No, better to go unnoticed, to win small here and there, to build up a base. And flying below the radar has become all the more necessary with his photograph plastered all over the news and big-screen televisions on every other wall. He tied his hair back at Phasma’s instruction, obscured part of his face behind a clunky pair of Han’s aviators, even let her dab concealer over his more distinctive moles.

He left her with the Voyager against his better judgment. There was little alternative. A partner would only throw him off in here, and Phasma admitted she doesn’t gamble—a geographical hazard, she called it. Probably she won’t leave him, won't take the van and run, not when there’s only half a tank of gas and the promise of more money when he succeeds. Probably. As she said, he doesn’t have much choice but to trust her a little.

Kylo takes a seat at the blackjack table, mutters a greeting at the dealer, trying to look tired and desperate but not jittery. He wins a couple quick hands, bets a bit bigger, then loses a few, especially a key loss to the House. There’s a rhythm to it, making it seem random and not regular, not _planned_. _Most cardsharks know to throw a game every now and then,_ Lando told him, as he taught him sleight of hand.  _That’s just good sense_. _The real key is to know which and when._ Eventually, he cashes out with about four hundred more in his pocket than he came in with, although he keeps his expression disappointed, even frustrated—everyone wants to win big here, after all, and triple digits isn’t big at all. If it won’t pay off your mortgage, it’s not a big enough win. So he mopes and scowls and pushes away in a huff.

Then he goes to the next casino.

He doesn’t play the same game every time; at the Cosmopolitan, he even opts for the slots to give the impression of an idle tourist. He makes twenty dollars there only by pulling the lever, although he knows the machine would devour those quarters in no time if he kept at it. Before long, each casino begins to blur into the next, the same blaring colors and constant racket, the same bite of air conditioning as he steps through the doors. They all have their quirks, though, the slight deviations in layout that make them tricky, difficult to escape. Kylo’s given complimentary drinks at the Stratosphere and only orders Coke; every other place offers him a deal on the buffet. Anything to make him linger, to eye the machines and the tables and think, _Okay, one more go, and then I’ll quit_.

He doesn’t spend more than an hour at any of them. Asks for a Shirley Temple at the Luxor just to be obnoxious, although the drink is too sickly sweet for him to finish. The bulk of the afternoon passes that way, and he tries to affect aimlessness, wandering down the Strip without purpose, not knocking them down all in a row. 

By the time Kylo reaches the Flamingo, he’s got almost seven grand in his pocket and another hour before the sun goes down. He wants to be on his way out of the city by then, by the time the real crowds appear, the city lighting up the desert, and the dark hiding the cigarette butts and condom wrappers and the cellophane tumbleweeding down the streets. He can drop Phasma off at the airport or wherever she wants to go; with this much cash, she could probably manage a decent plane ticket. But he was hoping for ten thousand minimum, and that means one more game at one more casino.

He buys into a round of Texas hold‘em against his better judgment—not his preferred setup and too many variables, but it’s the first viable option he sees. To his immense relief, peering over his aviators, he finds a ragged group of competitors: a gray-haired woman wearing a teddy-bear printed sweatshirt, two college students in tank-tops and shorts who keep staring at their cards like they’re not entirely sure what to do with them, and a skinny red-haired guy about his age wearing a rumpled white suit over a bright blue dress shirt, neither of which fit. Borrowed clothes, never a good sign. His gaze cuts to Kylo when he sits down, sharp, assessing, before he sighs and rolls his neck, apparently disinterested and unimpressed.

The dealer flicks two cards to each of them with practiced ease. Kylo admires his pair of Jacks before dropping them face down on the table and bets accordingly on the pre-flop. The communal cards don’t particularly favor him, offering up a two, a four, and an Ace, but good odds the flop doesn’t favor any of them, if the college students’ nervous fidgeting and Red’s exasperated sigh are anything to go by. Only the teddy-bear grandma appears at all optimistic.

She keeps him in the game, and he raises her a few times, especially when his third Jack shows up on the turn. Red stays in when the college students fold, but he seems annoyed about it, as though he’s not willing to give up his hand, but he doesn’t much like it either. He’s careless about it, too, not bothering to count his chips before he tosses them in, mumbling his bets more than speaking them aloud.

“Oh rats, I’m out.” The teddy-bear grandma folds before the river, pink lips pursed in displeasure.

It’s him and Red alone for the denouement, and Kylo confidently reveals his three of a kind, seeing few better options on the table. A flush and a straight are both impossible by his count.

The man across from him looks pensive. His eyes are an unusual gray-green, their color shifting under the lights, and faint bags, the shade of cigarette ash, crescent below them. He’s combed his hair back from his brow, but a piece dangles loose. It’s lank, darkened with grease. He overturns one ace—and then a second. Stares at Kylo, deliberate, until he meets his gaze; then he smirks and rakes the pot over.

 _Never gamble angry_ , Uncle Lando always said. _The minute someone gets under your skin, you’ve lost, understand? They can do what they want with you_.

 _Yeah, listen to Lando_ , his father had laughed, overhearing this, once. _He knows what he’s talking about._

 _Shut your mouth, Solo, I’m teaching your kid how to win at cards. God knows he’s not going to learn from his old man_.

 _Whatever you say, ya no-good cheater_.

Never gamble angry. Leave emotion out of it. Lose one hand, play the next one better. If someone figures out your tells, you figure out theirs. Don’t try to make up lost ground, play to your advantages and that’s it. You can’t force a recoup; it has to happen naturally.

He forgets all of it in the next hour.

“Tell me, friend,” the redhead drawls after the second or third hand—both of which he won. And that’s Kylo's shitty luck today, another goddamn Brit. He’s starting to feel cursed. “You new to the city?”

“Eat a dick,” he says. He’s lost at least five hundred dollars.

“ _Language_ ,” corrects the teddy-bear grandma. The dealer shoots him a warning glance, too.

“Just making friendly conversation,” Red says, mildly. “No need to get crude.” But he gives him an unsubtle once-over and bares his teeth instead of smiling, and around then Kylo begins to suspect he’s being had.

He starts watching Red more carefully after that, trying to catch him at counting cards or slipping replacements from his sleeve, but he sees no sign of either. Although the casino would have noticed. He’s not winning steadily, either, blows a big hand to one of the college kids, but regains his losses afterward. The stack of chips in front of Kylo, meanwhile, diminishes.

“Such a pity about that flush,” Red purrs, all pretense of apathy abandoned, when he takes him for another ride. _He’s enjoying_ this. But there’s no way he could have known Kylo would fall one short? That’s impossible.

_Right?_

The most important rule of gambling, played honestly or dishonestly, his father always said: _know when to walk away_. Never mind the ten thousand—or two thousand, when his total dips below that. The time passes when Kylo should cut his losses and go. The time passes when he should have gone anyway; he can’t see the sun sinking below the city outside, but he knows it’s happening, knows it’s past time for him to be gone. The problem isn’t only the money, though. It’s this guy, his smug smirk, his lazy lack of style, his stupid accent, and that Kylo _knows_ , knows in his bones, down to his own criminal marrow, that this scrawny, pasty bastard is cheating, is playing him for everything he has, but he doesn’t know _how_ he’s doing it _._

“Maybe you’d find the machines more your speed,” he suggests. “Unless—you _can_ manage pulling a lever, can’t you? Surely that’s straightforward enough.”

Bad enough that he loses again, but the college kids also snicker.

The game ends anti-climatically, no big showdown between the two of them, no last-minute heroics on his part, no chance to fling down an unlikely Royal Flush nothing like the stories Lando and Chewie told about the old days, about winning big on a last hand. He goes all in on an outside straight and blows it against the teddy-bear grandma.

Shit.

“Well, look at the time.” Red studies his watch, a heavy, expensive piece that hangs off his skinny wrist. He moves to leave the game, sweeping his chips into a paper bag. 

“Help you with you those, sir?” an attendant asks. He waves her off, brusque.

“No, thank you. I’m done with this godforsaken place for the day. Forever, in fact. Ta.” He offers Kylo one last sneer before sauntering away, bag tucked under his arm, hands in his pockets. 

It’s stupid to follow him out to the lobby, but he has nothing else _to_ do. Has nothing else at all, only the twenty he left his pocket, just in case, another one of Uncle Lando's rules. “Hey. Hey, asshole!” He catches up with Red and spins him around to face him. “I’m talking to you.”

The guy’s taller than he expected, only a couple inches shorter than him, and he makes up for the difference by tilting his chin upward, snarling as he wrenches his shoulder out of his grip. “Don’t touch me,” he snaps. He’s white-knuckling the paper bag like Kylo’s going to snatch it from him.

But, no, a more physical confrontation would draw attention. “I want my money back,” he says instead.

Red snorts. “And I want a spaceship, but we can’t always get what we want, can we?” He rolls his eyes and moves to leave.

Kylo catches him by the arm, dragging him back. And he can see casino security shifting in his peripherals. “I know,” he tries. He lowers his voice. “I know what you did.”

Those eyes, peculiar and pale, widen before he recovers, disdain and condescension resettling over his weasely features. _At last, a tell_. Then he shakes his head, vehement. “I don’t know what you’re talking about it,” he lies.

“I know you cheated. I know you were swapping out your cards.” He wasn’t, Kylo’s pretty sure.

“That’s not how I—“ Red says before he catches himself. He blanches, then flushes. “You can’t prove anything.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t need to—I just need to tell the casino management what I saw.” He flicks his fingers at Red’s jacket sleeve, producing a card. “Oh shit, is this a spare Ace?”

“Fuck you,” he hisses, but he’s looking around, openly nervous now. He scowls at Kylo when his gaze falls on him again; his nostrils flare as he twists in his grip. “You’re going to get us both caught.”

“Hey, I only want my money back. Keep whatever you swindled from the others, I won’t say anything.”

“How generous.”

They’re definitely attracting attention, and, worse, Kylo can see the evening news on the flatscreen over Red’s shoulder. He doesn’t want to find out if his own face will be staring back at him shortly. And that might have been his other name in the scroll at the bottom of the screen, he isn’t sure. He grabs at the bag in the other man’s hands. “I’m kind of in a hurry, so—“

“ _Oi_ , hands off,” Red protests and pulls back, and the paper tears between the two of them. “Shit!”

Everything slows. 

A long cascade of chips, red and blue and white, falls through the tear, spilling onto the floor.

The people nearest them go to their knees, scrambling for them, scooping them up.

Casino security is pushing through the crowd towards them.

Kylo curses and abandons the scene, not quite running, suddenly grateful for the scavengers snatching up the lost chips. He’s nearly to the door before he realizes that Red is hot on his heels, chewing him out every step of the way, the remains of the paper bag clutched in his hands. “You bloody  _imbecile_ , that was all my money, and where the fuck do you think you’re going—“ 

He stops the rotating door with his foot when Kylo tries to duck into it.

“Let go.” He kicks at him, to no avail.

“No.”

For a moment, they’re in a stalemate, glowering at each other. The flash of suits behind them goads Kylo into action. Instead of forcing Red back, difficult given the angle, he snags him by one slender wrist and drags him into the rotating door with him before pushing them both through. Red’s response is only a surprised squawk, and he almost tumbles free as they exit. Although he recovers enough to follow Kylo down the street, still castigating him with every spare breath in his lungs. “Of all the idiotic, clumsy, ludicrous—“

They’re midway down the Strip when Kylo turns to face him, grabbing a handful of polyester and yanking him in. “Be _quiet_ ,” he orders. Glaring at him, his sunglasses slipping down his nose. The inexorable stream of pedestrian traffic parts around him, although they're getting stares.

Red opens his mouth, presumably to tell him off further before his eyes widen again. Then narrow. “You look familiar,” he accuses.

Kylo releases him and turns. “No, I don’t,” he warns.

He’s still dogging his steps, but he's no longer shouting. “You do. Your face. It’s been on the television.”

Kylo rounds a corner, almost jogging now, approaching the garage where he left Plasma and the Voyager. _Please, let that have not gone wrong, at least_. “You’re wrong,” he snarls over his shoulder.

“It _has_. A-ha. I remember now, you’re that moron from the news who—“

“Goddammit it,” Kylo says under his breath, before wheeling on him. _Another_ person who can identify him. He grabs Red and shoves him in front of him, into the garage.

Yes, there where he left it: the Voyager. Relief floods him, even with this newest problem, which is currently trying to wiggle out of his grip.

“Hey, get off,” he protests. Struggles as Kylo propels him towards the van. Is maybe realizing his mistake now, the empty garage, the weight and muscle Kylo has on him. “Let me go, I said. _Hel_ —”

He claps one hand over his mouth and squeezes his arm, bruising hard, when Red tries to bite him. All but carries him to the car, as he squirms uselessly against his hold, his feet dragging.

When they get close, Phasma slides open one of the rear doors. She’s changed out of her waitress’s uniform, now wearing a pair of jeans and a sweater. “What’s this, then?” she asks, indicating Red, who protests, muffled, under his palm.

“A complication,” Kylo tells her.

“You excel at those, it seems.” She gives him an appraising look, taking in his expression. “It didn’t go well, did it.”

“What _is_ this,” Red demands as Kylo manhandles him into the back of the van. 

“Keep an eye on him,” he says. When Phasma doesn’t move, he adds. “I’ll explain on the way.”

“On the way to _what._   _Where._ ”

“Out,” is all Phasma says. “Now be a good lad and sit still, and we’ll have no trouble.”

  

* * *

  

“Let me see if I understand,” Red, who goes by Hux apparently, no given name offered, is saying to Phasma. He’s sitting with her in the back seat, arms folded, posture slumped, more or less resigned to his situation now. And having recovered, he’s about as pleasant as he was at the Flamingo. Won’t shut up either. “A wanted criminal comes into your place of employment, is nearly accosted by the authorities, reveals himself to be completely inept, and you decide, ‘hey, I’d like a ride out of Vegas from _that_ guy’? Are you mad?”

“Oh, please,” she says. “Like you don’t have ‘petty thief’ scribbled all over you. I know your type. This city’s full of small-time crooks like you.”

They haven’t yet cleared Vegas, although the Strip and its impressive light displays are shrinking in the mirrors as they drive deeper into the sprawl around the city, heading north now, traffic easing around them, moving fast enough that Hux has quit trying to pitch himself out of the van at every opportunity. (There were some close calls. But Kylo was right about Phasma's willingness and ability to tackle someone. Feels vindicated.)

“Pardon me, madam,” Hux replies, haughty. “I’m anything but a _petty_ thief.”

“So if I turn you upside down and shake you, it’s _not_ going to rain Rolexes and billfolds?”

He’s quiet for a moment. Kylo glances in the rearview, taking in his frown and evasive eyes. “I’m a slightly down-on-my-luck thief,” he concedes. “But it was all going rather well until _that one_ showed up.”

“Yeah, well,” Kylo snorts. “You didn’t exactly brighten my day either, sunshine.”

Hux flashes two fingers at him. “And you, criminal mastermind, what was your grand plan exactly? Win a bunch of money in Vegas and flee the country? How original. You know the Mexican border is the other way, I trust. Or are you as bad at directions as you are at poker and escape plans?”

He gives him a one-fingered salute in return. “Not that it’s any of your fucking business, but I’m not going to Mexico.”

“Canada? They'll send you back, you know.”

He shakes his head.

“Montana,” Phasma says, slowly. “That was the other map you had, wasn’t it? Nevada, Idaho, and Montana.”

 _Shit_.

“What’s in Montana?” Hux asks. He laughs at Kylo’s sullen expression. It’s a harsh noise, loud, almost braying. “Oh, what, I’m not allowed to know? Come now, at least let me in on the big secret. You’re going to dump my body in the desert anyway, aren’t you?”

Kylo rolls his eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic. I’m not going to dump your body anywhere. I’m only going to leave you on the edge of town so you can’t rat me out. Asshole.” And never mind that he's more or less just deciding this now. Or that he panicked before. He studies the road; the desert unfurls, vast and indigo in front of them. They’re rapidly clearing anything that could be called civilization; only a few cars and trucks share the lanes with them. _Leaving Las Vegas_   _City Limits,_ a sign declares ahead. Fucking finally. “In fact.” He pulls over onto the shoulder, his blinkers flashing yellow, flicking shadows over the pavement, and reaches back to unlatch the door. Pushes it open. “You can get out here. You both can. It’s as good a place as any.”

Neither of them moves.

“That wasn’t the deal,” Phasma protests.

“Yeah, well.” Kylo shrugs. “Extenuating circumstances. I don’t have the money for you to buy a plane ticket or whatever. And I’m not taking you with me, so this is it. Go on, get out.”

The Plymouth rattles as a car speeds past them, headlights flaring and then disappearing. The cooling night air rushes into the car. “Why not? Take us with you, I mean,” Hux says after a beat. They both turn to gawk at him. “What? It's sensible, after a fashion. I want out of this neon hellscape as badly as Phasma here, maybe more. And, true, a pseudo-kidnapping by the halfwit son of a famous politician wasn’t my plan, but since we’re almost out—why not get all the way clear, if we can?”

“Does _anyone_ want to stay in Vegas?” Kylo asks, despairing, mostly to himself. 

“Hux is right,” Phasma says slowly. “I would rather have my choice of where to go, but Montana’s got towns and small cities. Some of them even have airports. You can drop us off at one—wherever you’re going. At least it’ll be somewhere else.”

“If you think about it,” Hux adds dryly. “It’s the least you can do. Considering.” 

 _Considering you dragged us both out here in the first place_.

Kylo regards the pair of them. Phasma’s pale hair haloes her paler face; Hux’s eyes are dark, unfathomable in the shadows. The city’s lights glitter behind them, beckoning them all back, but neither spares a glance that way, at that luminous oasis. They’re both looking at him, expectant, and at the road ahead. And it would be much easier to do this alone; he didn’t want to involve other people, least of all two strangers he’s just met. But he has few options, he understands, for the moment. There may be an opportunity to ditch them later, at a truck stop or a gas station. And they would manage if he did. Probably better than they would out here. Kinder to give them that.

Not that he cares about kindness. Not that it matters. He's only exhausted.

“Fuck it. _Fine_ ,” he growls. “I’ll take you as far as I can, and then we’ll part ways. But the minute either of you gives me any trouble—and I mean _any_ trouble, yeah, I mean you, Hux—and I’ll leave you wherever we are, understand?”

 

* * *

 

Kylo drives north, into wilder country, taking Rte. 93 up across the Basin through the mountains, which loom on either side of the highway. He remembers this drive, the flat expanse of it surrounded by rocky terrain, although so many of the roads out here are like that. At night, especially, he might as well be moving through nothing, into nothing.

“So did you do it?” Hux asks. Not long after they left the city behind, he climbed into the front seat, uninvited. Given Phasma’s silence in the back, she must either be thinking, listening, or asleep. But Kylo knows how it is to stretch out on those seats and get lost in the sound of the car running over the pavement, oblivious to everything else. 

“What do you mean?” He glances at Hux, then back at the road. He hasn’t decided what to make of him yet, this sharp-voiced hustler who took him for everything he was worth and almost got him caught in the process. In profile, Kylo can see the softness of his chin, the jut of his nose, the coma of hair that won’t stay slicked back overhanging his forehead. An unusual face, a contrast of hard angles and full lips, long lashes.

“What they’re saying you did,” Hux explains, impatient. “Taking bribes or selling privileged information or whatever it was. Did you do it?”

He tightens his grip on the steering wheel. “Why do you want to know?”

“Does it matter? Maybe I’m curious.” He laughs, quieter now, although still harsh. “What, do you want to hear my rap sheet first? I can promise it’s much more interesting than yours. Longer, too.”

And is there any point in lying? It's not like he cares what Hux thinks. He's no one, a con artist at most. “Yeah,” Kylo admits finally. “Yeah, I did it.”

Hux hums, noncommittal. “What’d you get out of it? How much?”

“It wasn’t—“ he falters. It hadn’t been like that. “That’s not how it works. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. I helped with their ventures; they helped with mine. It’s not like Snoke wrote me a check and put ‘for government secrets’ on the memo line." 

“He might as well have done, from the sound of it.”

“Yeah, well. I didn’t know that First Order was going to get a surprise audit, did I?” he snaps. Feeling strangely defensive. He’s met few people who could rile him this easily, and it’s ridiculous, he knows, to be upset by the implication that he broke the law _poorly_.

Nonetheless.

“White-collar crime,” Hux shakes his head. “Unnecessarily overcomplicated.” 

Kylo snorts. “Yeah, and what’s your specialty? Aside from cheating at low-stakes poker, that is.”

“Ha. You’re just angry you still don’t know how I did it,” he taunts, and Kylo doesn’t need to see his face to know he’s smirking. He can hear it. “But this and that. Grand theft auto, mainly.”

He does look at him now, eyebrows raised. “Really?” He had figured him for more of a scammer or a money launderer. Illegal imports, maybe. He doesn’t act like the type to get his hands that dirty, especially so literally, with engine grease.

“It’s not so exciting.” Hux shrugs. “I was running a small chop-shop, but we made the wrong enemies recently, or _I_ did specifically, and that was that. Unfortunate really. We were doing rather well before then.”

“You mean the mafia.” Kylo stares out at the road. A single pair of headlights is coming from the other direction, but the landscape is such that they’re miles off yet, distant. “Is that why you wanted to get out of town?” They had both been trying to make quick money, then.

Hux drums his fingers against the dash. “You could say that. It was in my best interest to disappear before I _disappeared_. Although I never intended to end up there in the first place. It’s disgusting. Always hot and sunny and full of loud people. The definition of excess. I've always hated it.” He twists around in his seat, surveying the Voyager, and changes the subject: “Speaking of cars, however, I have to ask. What’s with the hippie van? You don’t exactly seem like the nostalgic sort.”

 _What sort do I seem like?_ he doesn’t ask. Wondering if Hux would be at all impressed by the Mustang.

Or if he would curl his lip and ask whether he was compensating for something.

“It’s my dad’s,” Kylo acknowledges. “I, uh. Borrowed it.”

“You stole it, you mean,” Hux corrects him, seeing the truth of this immediately. “You don’t think he’ll report it missing, your father?”

Kylo tries to picture Han filing a police report. Remembers, instead, all the times he’d seen him bent over the hood of the Voyager in handcuffs, trying to sweet talk his way out of another arrest. “He doesn’t like cops much himself.”

“Another man of principle, I take it.” Hux laughs in what sounds like genuine amusement, not mocking him, not exactly, not this time. “And all of this is his?”

He should go through the van, maybe after he loses Hux and Phasma, and see what’s of use. If he’s low on cash, he’ll have to improvise. At least, some of the old camping gear should still be in the back. And maybe he can unload some of this junk, get a little money for it. “Yeah, he never throws anything away.”

Worse than that, Han’s in the business of picking up other people’s discards—he’s a notorious curbside shopper. Doesn’t matter how rusted or wrecked a thing is, he’ll haul it into the van on the off chance he can make some use of it. 

“You close?” Hux asks after a lull.

“Not really. He split when I was a kid and left me with my mom.” Kylo shoots him a look. Hux’s staring out the window now, chin propped on one hand, watching the jagged plateau fly past. “Why do you want to know any of this?” he repeats, trying not to sound suspicious. Failing.

“No need to fuss.” He yawns. “I’m only making idle conversation.”

“Yeah, all right, but why?” There’s no reason for him to stay awake to talk to him. No reason for them to talk at all. It’s not like they started off even remotely friendly. In fact, he doesn’t know when he disliked someone at first gasp more.

Then, they had been trying to cheat each other at cards and both in dire straits apparently.

“It’s late, and you’re driving on a country road, and I’d rather not end up in a ditch because you've fallen asleep at the wheel,” Hux says, pointed. “Why, do you have something better to do than talk to me?”

“No, but—“ There’s a soft noise behind him. Kylo cuts himself off, listening. _Phasma?_  “What was that?”

“What was what?” he demands. “That’s not funny, you know. Juvenile.”

“I wasn’t joking. There's—” Something furry brushes his arm, and he jerks away from it, twisting the wheel too hard. The Plymouth veers. “The fuck?”

“What are you on ab—“

“ _Meow_ ?” something asks from the vicinity of his elbow, followed by the suggestion of  _sharpness_ —teeth? claws?—on his bare skin and that is _it_. Kylo slams on the breaks; the Plymouth screeches to a long stop, the momentum pitching him and Hux forward,  _hard_ , against their seat belts. Phasma wakes with a thunk and startled yelp in the back seat.

“What the hell, Kylo?” she demands.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Hux echoes. He’s caught the interloper in both hands, preventing it both from being flung into the windshield and from escaping.

“What the _hell_ ,” Kylo agrees, flipping on the overhead light. “And why the _fuck_ is there a cat in the van?”

Because that’s what Hux is holding cupped between his palms: a small, disgruntled ginger tabby who’s regarding them all with a pair of scornful green eyes. Her whiskers twitch.

“Well?” Kylo asks when he’s met with silence. “Phasma?”

“What do you mean ‘Well, Phasma’?” She glares at him, hair tousled, eyes bleary.

“It sure as shit ain’t mine,” he snaps. “And unless Hux was carrying it around in his jacket pocket.”

“A cat in a casino? Not bloody likely,” he says, distaste clear in his voice. Although he hasn’t let go of the animal yet. Is rubbing her chin, soothing.

Phasma throws her hands up in exasperation. “Yes, and while I was sitting around twiddling my thumbs in your bizarrely retro transport, I thought: you know what would make this extremely odd and tenuous situation more fun? _A wild animal_.”

“She’s not a wild animal,” Hux corrects. “She’s a stray. She must have—climbed into the van at some point.”

“Oh, it’s a she, is it?”

“Just a guess.”

Kylo drags a hand over his face. This is, no competition, the longest thirty-six hours of his life so far. Including the peyote incident. “Well, whatever it is and however it got in, put it out so we can get moving.”

“Put her out?” Hux asks. “We’re in the middle of the desert, Kylo. There’s nothing even ‘round here.”

“Yes, well, it’s a cat, it’ll manage. It can eat…lizards or something. Scorpions. Whatever lives out there. I’m sure it’ll have a good time.”

“More likely she’ll _get_ eaten. There are coyotes and hawks and god knows what else.” Hux smooths one hand over the cat’s ears. She arches up into the touch, trilling. “Besides, how do you know this isn’t your father’s cat, if this is his vehicle?”

“It isn’t,” Kylo says, flatly. No way Han has a cat living in the Voyager, or any car. The risk to the upholstery alone—he would never.

Hux’s jaw juts out, stubborn. His eyes flash, as green as the cat’s. “But how can you be sure?”

Kylo doesn't have the energy for it, this argument, another argument. Or the time.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He throws the van into drive again and eases on the gas. Annoyed at the way his hands are still shaking. “But keep it away from me, got it? And if it pisses on _anything_ , it’s out and so are you.” 

The cat meows— _pleased_ , and he doesn't think he's imagining it—as the Plymouth rumbles its way on again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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> Thanks for reading! <3


	2. The Great Basin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo, Hux, and Phasma make their way through rural Nevada.

Kylo wakes to the sensation of someone tapping his lips, gentle, hesitant. He mumbles against the contact, swiping one hand in front of him, trying to dissuade whoever’s trying to rouse him, but it continues: _tap, tap, tap_. He opens his eyes to a pair of green ones, very close to his face. _Feline_ eyes, surrounded by ginger fur, the pupils narrowed to slits. “Goddammit.” He startles, sitting up fast, and the cat, unconcerned, hops off his chest and onto the Voyager’s floor. An eighteen-wheeler groans past them. He vaguely remembers making it to the truck stop around four this morning; his vision had been graying at the edges by then, and even Hux’s persistent conversation hadn’t kept him focused. It had been a relief to stretch out on one of the back seat benches, and sleep came quickly, despite the noise of the truck stop and the strangeness of two other people breathing, unfamiliar, in the close space.

He squints around the van; Hux is passed out in the seat behind him, curled up tight under his too-big jacket, mouth open, snoring quietly. The cat jumps up next to him and settles in the valley between his ribs and his hip, not disturbing him. Phasma’s nowhere to be seen.

And he doesn’t _think_ she would—even though—she’s had ample opportunity already, after all, but—

The rear door slides open. “Good, you’re awake,” Phasma says. She shoves a styrofoam hot-cup into his hand. Steam tendrils up from the lid. “I’m guessing you need that.” 

“Uh, thanks."

“Don’t get used to it. My coffee-serving days are quite finished.” She climbs in next to him. Leans over the seat to poke at Hux. “Rise and shine, poppet.”

“Fuck off,” he growls and pulls his jacket over his face.

“Come now, up and at ‘em, as they no doubt say ‘round these desolate parts.” She prods him. “We have matters to discuss.”

Kylo gives her a wary glance. “How’s it looking out there?”

She shrugs. “Your face is still all over the regional and metropolitan papers. I’d say you’ve made rather an impression. But I didn’t see any law enforcement. We should be able to get petrol and supplies without too much trouble, provided you keep a low profile. Then we ought to get back on the road speedily, I imagine.”

“We should—resources—first.” Hux waves one hand through the air above the seats. “Inventory. The van.”

It takes the better part of an hour to comb through the Voyager, retrieving boxes and sundry items from under the seats, not to mention sorting the pile of junk in the rear. At last, the three of them stand around the open trunk, staring down at the assortment of their earthly possessions: eighty-six dollars, three 20-degree sleeping bags (one special order extra tall), six jugs of water, a grocery bag full of paperback Westerns, a cooler of Rolling Rock, a black garbage bag spilling over with clothes either intended for or retrieved from Good Will, Han’s old camping stove and mess kits, the bottom half of a rocking chair, a toolkit, a box of spare parts clotted over with rust, bungees, a mostly-drained fifth of Old Grand-Dad, Kylo’s duffle, a bulk case of Campbell’s corn chowder, and a gallon-size freezer bag of weed.

“Your father is a shite survivalist.” Hux looks as disheveled and bleary-eyed as Kylo feels, his white pants a mess of creases, his shirt untucked, his hair standing straight up at the back and squashed flat against the side of his head. He’s cradling the cat against his chest, and she seems wholly content to be there, maybe knowing whose arguments spared her a short, brutal life out on the hardscrabble.

“Yeah, sorry.” Kylo rubs his face. “Next time I’m fleeing the police, I’ll call ahead and ask him to stock the van better.”

“Eighty dollars isn’t going to buy us enough petrol to get this tub to Montana.” Phasma plants her hands on her hips. “Is that really all we have?”

Kylo scowls. “That’s all _I_ have after yesterday.”

“That’s all that was in the tip jar and my purse, too.”

Both of them turn to look at Hux, pointed.

“Oh, very well,” he says. Rapidly crumpling under the scrutiny. He unceremoniously hands the cat to Kylo—he holds her at arm’s length while she wriggles and complains—and jams both hands into his pants pockets. Dumps six gleaming watches and four slick wallets onto the pile. Follows them with two generous handfuls of poker chips. “Happy?”

“Much better, thank you.” Phasma snatches up the watches, the chips, and the weed. “I should be able to unload these without too much trouble.”

“And who put you in charge of asset liquidation, as it were?” Hux sneers. “That’s the majority of our funds. You could abscond with it and leave us stranded. Why should we trust you?”

She stares him down. “Of the three of us, I believe I’m the only one who is not a _wanted_ _felon_.”

To his dubious credit, Hux doesn’t wilt when confronted with her stony expression. “That we know of,” he persists. Folds his arms over his thin chest. “You could be anyone, have done anything _._ And you’ve obviously no qualms about illegal activity if you’re skipping off to sell marijuana and poker chips to truckers. Plus you’re with _us_.” 

“I do what needs to be done.” Phasma mirrors his posture, standoffish, looming over him. They would be nose to nose if she weren’t the taller of the two. “We’re not going to go around as a group trying to sell off your loot. I cannot imagine anything more suspect. And you’d do well to stop wasting time. We haven’t got an unlimited supply of that.”

“Excuse me if I’m unwilling to blindly—“

“Right, like you’re a better candidate to—“

“ _Enough_ ,” Kylo interrupts. The cat finally frees herself from his grip and leaps back into the van. She settles among the piles of junk and gear, nonplussed, washing her face. “Look, we’re not going to get anywhere this way, and I’d really rather not hang around.” _Although you can both fuck off as far as I’m concerned_.

Then, maybe they will. He waits.

Phasma glares down at Hux a moment more, before relenting. “Fine.” She unbuttons the top of her sweater.

“I really don’t think—“ He takes a step back, nervous.

“Oh, please. As though I _ever_ would. Even if I did like cock, there’s no way yours is worth it,” she scoffs. She fishes out a thin ball chain. A pair of dog tags hangs on the end of it. She unfastens it and slides them free, handing one to Kylo and one to Hux. “Here. Collateral. I’ll be wanting those back.” 

Hux’s eyes widen when he reads the tag. “You were—“

She cuts him off. “Yeah, we’re not discussing that. Now, what do you have?” 

His mouth screws to the side, considering. Finally, he unclasps the bulky watch from around his own wrist. “You are _not_ to sell this one, are we clear?”

“ _Brendol Hux_ ,” Phasma reads. “Is that you?”

“It is not.” 

She raises an eyebrow but doesn’t press him. “Kylo.”

“Hm?”

“Keys.” She holds out her hand.

He scowls. “What for?”

“So you can’t abandon us here, obviously.” Phasma beckons with her fingers. “Here, yes, give them over. Good boy.”

He resists the urge to sulk. Doesn’t entirely succeed.

But he wouldn’t have gotten that far without more gasoline anyway.

“Right, so I’ll handle the—how did you put it?—‘liquidation of assets’ and procure the petrol. Petty thief, I assume you know your way around a five-finger discount? Brilliant. You’re officially in charge of additional acquisitions,” she directs, with all the nonsense-intolerance of a drill sergeant. “Kylo, best stay close to the van, yeah? And both of you get cleaned up as well as you can, too. I’m not riding the next thousand or so miles in a cloud of _eau du homme malodorant_.”

Everything in him wants to protest her tone, to demand who the fuck she thinks she is to order them around like this. He peers down at the detached dog tag in his palm. _C. Phasma_ , _DOB 28/10/78_ and a series of designations he doesn’t understand. In other words: exactly who the fuck she is, punched right into the metal. She’s already halfway across the plaza, walking like she knows where she’s going, not waiting for their permission.

Difficult to imagine her waiting for anyone’s permission.

Hux is still standing next to him, watching her go. “You said you met this woman at a diner _._ ”

“I did.”

“Where she was working as a _server._ ”

“Yes,” Kylo says.

“I don’t know that I believe you,” Hux informs him. He sniffs, circumspect, at his collar and then sighs, looking down at his suit in disgust. “She wasn’t wrong about getting clean. I may have to go blow some snaggletoothed road warrior for a shower. I’m about ready to burn these. They were hardly fresh yesterday.”

“Uh, here.” He digs into his bag, fishing out a shirt and a pair of jeans, handing them to him. “In case you want a change of clothes and a sink wash, instead.”

Hux stares at him a moment, eyebrows raised, before accepting them. “Thank you.”

Kylo lingers with the van, arranging and rearranging its contents. The cat studies him from her perch on the back seat, unblinking. “Yeah, I don’t know what I’m doing either.” He slumps against the door, scanning the plaza. No sign of Hux or Phasma. For a moment, when they were standing around the van, it had felt—encouraging, almost. Like they really could be in this together, the burden of it shared. Despite all the bickering. “Think they’re coming back? Or—I’m probably fucked, right? Yeah, I’m probably fucked. And I’m talking to a cat. Fuck.”

He sits there for a few beats longer, fidgeting, before he risks ducking into the men’s room with one of Chewie’s battered trucker hats pulled low over his eyes, and washes up as well as he can. Feels his heart plummet when he emerges to find the Voyager missing from its previous spot. But then: there’s Phasma at the gas pump, leaning against the side of the van, her posture nonchalant.

“Did you—already?” Kylo asks. What he can’t ask: _Why are still you helping me?_

She spreads her hands, indicating they’re empty. “Picked up a few things, too. The legal way, mind you. Food and litter for the beast. Although I think we could probably set her free, and she’d have new environs within the hour. She’s obviously an enterprising little thing.”

“I won’t tell Hux if you won’t,” he mutters. 

“Too late for that, I’m afraid,” she says. Nodding in the direction of the convenience store. Hux is hurrying across the plaza, hair still wet from its probable dousing in the sink, wearing the shirt and jeans Kylo gave him; the former hangs from his narrow shoulders and the latter he’s rolled at the waistband and cuffs in an unsuccessful effort to make them fit. He’s added a pair of black sandals, too, with an abundance of straps, not easy to jog in from the look of them. The pockets don’t bulge _too_ suspiciously, but he still jumps into the Voyager like he’s expecting immediate pursuit. “I hope this thing’s refueled. I was getting _stares_.”

“Yep, right on time,” Phasma says, slipping the pump free and twisting the gas cap. She tosses Kylo the keys. Both of them are in motion.

“Go, go, go,” Hux is saying under his breath as Kylo turns the ignition, putting the van into gear as soon as the rear door closes, hitting the accelerator harder than he needs to, and they lurch out of the truck stop, winging into the turn.

“Is there any—did anyone—?” Kylo breathes when they’re at speed and out on the highway again. 

Phasma twists around in her seat, checking. “No,” she says. Laughs. Sounding giddy. “No, no, nothing. We did it.”

Kylo lets go a relieved laugh of his own. Slaps the steering wheel. “Fuck,” he says. “We did it.”

“Yes, bully for us. You’re both welcome, by the way,” Hux tells them, waspish. He’s digging food out of his pockets, out from under his shirt, his cuffs. He was nothing if not creative, apparently. “And you’re built like a bloody yeti, Kylo. I thought I was going to lose these fucking pants.” 

Behind, Phasma snorts another laugh, and Kylo can’t help it either, he does, too, and he can see Hux’s mouth turn down out at the corners, still sour, _determined to_ be, for a moment and another and another, before he joins them at last. 

 

* * *

 

In the daylight, Rte. 93 extends through a long tableau of red-brown earth and green-brown scrub and gray-brown mountains. It runs relatively flat and straight for long stretches, although it also winds between the slopes, sometimes taking them close to a craggy incline. _Falling rocks_ , warn the blaring yellow signs. The sky feels particularly massive out here, bright blue and heavy, like it might crush them. Kylo’s never been anywhere more isolated than this; once the truck stop falls out of sight, there’s nothing at all, the highway signs declaring them 248 miles from the next rest stop. He could forget anything else exists but the desert; there’s no evidence of anything beyond the mountain peaks.

It’s as remote where he’s going, if not more so, he reminds himself. He can disappear and forget the world for a while. Maybe it can forget him, too.

Phasma lets out a low whistle, leaning to peer out the window. “I’ve never seen hills like these before.”

“Vegas is surrounded by mountain ranges,” Kylo points out. He glances at her in the rearview. 

She shrugs. “They might as well be on another planet as far as the city is concerned. Obscured by the neon, you understand. Couldn’t even tell you what they’re called.”

“Well,  _these_ hills have singularly uninspiring names,” Hux says. He’s sitting cross-legged in the passenger seat, the Nevada map spread over his lap, a pair of sunglasses pushed up into his messy hair. It’s fluffy, curling at the edges as it dries. The cat perches on his shoulder, also peering down at the map. “Sheep Mountains. White Mountains. Bird Spring Mountains. The bloody ‘Desert Range.’ As though that isn’t the entire fucking state.”

Kylo snorts and shakes his head. “Well, what would you call them?” 

“‘Great heaping big pile of rock,’” Hux suggests. “‘You will perish here’ range. ‘Don’t fucking bother’ zenith. ‘How did you even make it this far, you absolute nutter’ ridge.” 

“Inspiring. Poetic, even.”

“ _I_ think so.” He smirks. “This map has got to be at least a quarter-century old, though. How do you know it’s still accurate?”

He gives him a sidelong glance before admitting, “Well, I don’t. Know for sure, I mean.”

Hux is staring at him, mouth working before he speaks. “Of course not. Fucking _incredible_.” He laughs, barking, short. “You really did just walk out your front door and hope for the best, didn’t you?”

“It’s not like I had a lot of time to figure this out.” Kylo scowls. Feeling again like he’s being dissected. 

“No, why should you think that your highly questionable choices might have repercussions and therefore a need for contingencies? Certainly, nothing else in your life has. It always works out fine, doesn’t it?”

“ _Hey_ ,” he snaps. “You don’t know me, okay? You don’t know anything about my life.”

“On the contrary,” Hux replies. Lip raised in an already familiar curl. “I think I know plenty. I know you’re an impulsive, _spoiled_ manchild who’s probably never had to do any real work in his life. A failed venture capitalist and a _laughably_ bad fugitive. Not to mention a lousy poker player.”

“Right, because ‘car thief’ and ‘pickpocket’ are such noble vocations. You’re a real working class hero, aren’t you, Hux?”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“After you. I’ll even stop the van first. Just say the word.” 

“I rather preferred when we were talking about mountains,” Phasma remarks lightly, to no one in particular. “Look, there’s another one. And another. And another.”

 

* * *

 

The day passes more or less in terse silence after that, occasionally punctuated by stilted exchanges, offers for a break, to adjust the air conditioning. Kylo tries the radio; there’s a crackle of a fiery sermon before it cuts out again. Han left a Johnny Cash album in the eight-track; they listen to that a few times through before even the Man in Black’s rolling baritone grows tiresome. The moon is curving up to the right when Kylo agrees to pull over for the evening. They end up in the lot of a dusted-over gas station, nothing else in sight, the next stop on the map hours away yet. There’s a small, rickety outhouse behind it; he tries not to think about what’s probably living under the boards when he makes use of it. 

Hux is perched in the back of the Voyager when he returns; the overhead light illuminates him, stark against the blue twilight. He’s studying the Nevada map again, frowning. Kylo heaves out a breath before moving to join him. He’d rather not spend the next several hundred miles like they did today. “How's our progress?” he asks, although he has an idea.

“Slow,” Hux says. He indicates roughly where they are, less than midway through the state. “Then, you’re not exactly driving a roadster.”

“Speed limit’s lower out here, too,” Kylo adds. “Technically this is a scenic route.”

“I can see that. It’s—well, incomparable, I suppose. Staggering.” Hux gestures at the glittering carpet of stars above them, the expression on his face softening from his usual scorn. Then, he clears his throat. Averts his eyes. “If you enjoy that sort of thing, that is. _Nature_.” He nearly manages to sound disgusted again.

“Yeah.” Kylo watches him for a beat. He really doesn’t know what he’ll say in any given moment, whether it will be scathing or oddly personal or—whatever that was. Wistful? “So it’ll take us a few days to clear the state. Another couple to get through Idaho, probably. And then there’s Montana.”

“And then you’ll be well shot of us.” Hux smiles. Not friendly, but not _as_ derisive either.

He winces; it’s true. They only need to get through the next week or so and then they’ll be free of each other.  “Well, you too, right? You can go back to your meticulously planned life of crime or whatever it was.”

Another short laugh. “Ah, yes, I’m sure Montana is flush with opportunities for someone like me.” There it is, clearly, on his face: _worry_. Uncertainty. Possibly fear.

Oh.

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” he says. Then coughs. “I mean, I don’t know you, but you seem like you’ll manage. Better than me. You were right, I. I don’t really know what I’m doing.”

Hux looks like might say something else—a confession, maybe, or, no, probably not an apology, that seems unlikely—but before he can speak, Phasma calls across the lot: “If you two think I’m cooking for you, you’re sorely mistaken.” She’s crouched on the concrete, lighting the camp stove. The cat is winding around her under the blue moonlight, no doubt hoping for food. 

Hux offers him a wry half-smile before joining them, scooping up the cat in his arms and away from the stove. They’ve set up some bedding for her in one of the boxes, a makeshift litterbox in another. She chirps at Hux, reaches up with one paw to touch his nose.

They heat up chowder, can by can, and sit around scraping their spoons against the aluminum, perched on the edge of the Voyager, none of them quite willing to fully depart or fully remain in the van, wanting both to leave it and shelter in it after the long day. They spread the sleeping bags over the seat afterward, agreeing without debate that this is as far as they’ll go tonight, exhausting settling over them. Something chitters beyond the lot, out in the scrub.

Kylo finds himself lying awake, despite the drive, despite the long day and his exhaustion, two nights on the run dragging on him. By the way the others are breathing, they’re not sleeping either.

“It’s so quiet out here,” Phasma remarks, to his left, after a lull. “Can’t recall the last place I’ve been that was this quiet.”

“Not like the city,” Hux agrees. On his other side. Murmuring. “Least quiet place on earth. No peace to be had there. Good riddance.”

And there’s no reason to ask, to know anything about either of them, and every reason to just turn over and try to sleep, but nonetheless, Kylo finds himself asking, “How did you end up there if you hate it so much?”

“How does anyone end up anywhere?” Hux muses. His voice softer, drowsy. “Circumstance. Bad luck. Or, well, bad luck in parents in my case.” He pauses, maybe weighing whether he wants to say more. The seat creaks as he shifts. “I’m in the family business, as they say. My father was running an operation back East. He’d decided to expand, so he shipped me out to the fucking desert without so much as a how do you please. Of course, he was more than happy to take his share of our profits and abandoned us the minute we ran into trouble. It wouldn’t surprise me if he sold me out, in fact. He never did like it when things were going too well.”

“Brendol, I presume?” Phasma asks when he’s finished.

“Yes, that’s him.” He sighs. “Bastard.”

“Then that watch of yours wasn’t a gift.”

“No. It’s his favorite diving watch.” The smile in his voice clear, knife-sharp in the dark. “The last time I saw him, he called me a no-good, petty thief. Worse than useless. So I stole it. I’ve been searching for a suitable body of water to drop it in ever since. Not the easiest task in this climate, mind you.”

“Might be some good, deep lakes once we get farther north,” Kylo suggests. His eyelids are beginning to droop, heavy, at last. "Could make a stop."

“Lovely, thank you,” Hux says, but it doesn’t sound biting or dismissive for once. He yawns. “I may very well take you up on that, Kylo.”

It’s nearly silent after that, only the cat’s gentle purring and three of them breathing in the night until sleep claims them.

 

* * *

 

“I spy with my little eye…something brown,” Phasma is saying. She’s in her customary spot in the middle seat, a dog-eared Louis L’Amour novel lying propped open on her knee. The cat is splayed over her other leg, sunning herself.

Hux groans from the passenger seat. “Rock. Or that other rock. Or that clump of dirt over there. Or—and I’m only guessing, mind you—another bloody mountain.” He huffs, loudly. “Does this state go on for-fucking-ever or what?”

“Only slightly less than for-fucking-ever,” Kylo promises, although he’s feeling the monotony of it himself.  They rose early, watching the day break as it painted the sky in golds and corals and violets. A single desert hare stood up among the brush, its nose twitching in their direction before it scampered away. Since then it’s been more unrelieved blue sky. More brown earth. Infinite. The Voyager’s a speck on the landscape, he thinks. Smaller, maybe. A mote. A molecule. “Hey, how far is it to Ely?” 

It hasn’t been entirely painful having a copilot these past two days, not that he’ll admit it out loud.

Hux studies the map. “Looks to be about a hundred miles, so a few hours. Why?”

“It’s actual town,” Kylo says. “I’m trying to decide if we should avoid it.”

“Oh, please, let’s go there,” Hux says. Surprisingly plaintive, almost a whine. “It’d be so nice to set foot somewhere that is more than four stop signs, a cactus, and a postal box. And I’d love to take a piss without wondering if I’m disturbing a rattlesnake or Gila monster or whatever other horrors call this godforsaken place home.”

“How cosmopolitan of you.” 

“I’m a man of refined tastes, what can I say,” Hux drawls. There’s something like a smile playing around the corners of his lips, although it's not _exactly_ pleasant. He re-rolls the map, neatly. Extends both legs, resting his shoes on the dash. “Although not all of us grew up the sons of popular Senators with presidential ambitions.”

Kylo groans. _Not more of this_. “Please, can we talk about anything else? And put your feet down. That’s unsafe.” One of Han’s perennial rules, at least when Kylo was in the front seat.

“No. And talk about what, the weather? The sky is—“ he leans over to peer out the windshield in an exaggerated show. “Still quite blue. Sun’s blazing like a motherfucker. Not a cloud in sight. Which. I miss clouds.”

“Any particular favorites?” He gives him an incredulous look at his tone, which is peculiar. _Sincere_. He tries to think if he’s ever missed _clouds_. But then, they’re not scarce in Northern California.

“Cirrus,” Hux says so promptly that Kylo thinks it must be true. “They're like feathers. Now, about your mother—“

“She doesn’t have a favorite kind of cloud,” Kylo interrupts. “And I’m not one of her political advisors, so I wouldn’t know a damn thing about her plans. _Your feet_.”

Hux snorts and stretches out both legs longer, pointedly. The cat, seeing an ideal new perch, leaps into his lap, and he ghosts an idle hand over her fur, clucking at her. “No, just her son who’s under investigation for dealing in state secrets.”

“It’s not a Tom Clancy novel. I helped some people decide how to invest before the regulations were proposed; I didn’t sell us out to a foreign government,” he shoots back.

This earns him an exaggerated eye roll. “Still, you must know it will have some impact. If only on your mother’s campaign. And you don’t care? Not at all?”

“Why, do you?” Kylo snaps. “And why should I? She always put her career first; she can hardly blame me for doing the same. _Hey_. _”_ He swats at Hux’s legs. “I said put your fucking feet down.”

“Oh-ho,” Hux says, sitting up straighter, expression triumphant, but otherwise he doesn’t move. Certainly doesn’t take his feet off the dash. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? Mummy never had enough time for you, Kylo? Your squadron of nannies didn’t hug you enough?”

“Gentlemen,” Phasma says from the backseat.

“Yeah, and what’s your excuse? Your dad’s a dick? Boohoo.” He looks from Hux to the road and back, glaring. “Got news for you, Hux. Everyone’s dad is a dick.”

“Hey, lads,” she tries again.

Hux bristles. “Are you implying you somehow have had a harder life than I have, Kylo? Because I can tell you, _your grace_ , you wouldn’t last one fucking day in my shoes.”

“In your _sandals_ , you mean. Did you make those, by the way? Or did the cat puke them up? _And get them off the dash_.”

“Right because you’re a bloody fashion icon in your—second? third? day of wearing the same shirt and ripped jeans. You fucking reek by the way.”

“YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE, MORONS,” Phasma bellows from the backseat, startling both of them. The cat springs from Hux’s lap and onto the floor, alarmed. "I think we’re being followed.”

And there it is behind them: a brown state trooper’s cruiser. 

Panic lurches into Kylo’s throat, immediate, constricting. “What?” he asks. Hates how high and thin his voice becomes, immediately. And this—if they wanted to, either of them could give him away right now, never mind their tentative arrangement, never mind any of it.

“I’m not certain,” Phasma adds, calmly, but makes no other gesture. Seems to be making an effort not to turn and check too obviously. “They’ve been there for about ten minutes that I've noticed. Of course, they may simply be _going_ somewhere. As one does. On a highway.”

“Likely he is.” Hux’s bent double, trying to retrieve the cat. His voice is muffled. “Come _here_ , darling. Phasma didn’t mean to scare you.” To Kylo, he says. _“_ He hasn’t flashed his lights, has he? And let’s be frank, this van’s very existence is probable cause. If he wanted to pull you over, he would have by now.”

“Fuck,” Kylo says. He checks the rearview again, the distinct shape behind them making his heart skip. “Fuck. They’re going to run the plates. They’ll know. We’re— _shit_.”

Phasma shakes her head and leans forward between the two front seats. “Kylo, there’s no way of knowing, okay? We can only see what they do. The best thing is to keep driving.”

“I don’t—what if—“ He’s going to jail. Despite everything, he’s goddamn going to jail. He searches left and right for a turnoff, but there are only the mountains jutting upward on either side of them. Nowhere to go. His inhale squeaks in the back of his throat. And he doesn’t—

He jumps when Hux’s hand falls on his arm, steadying him.“She’s right, eh? He’s probably on his way to his next traffic stop. He’s certainly not _looking_ for you. Why would he be, all the way out here? Just maintain your speed and drive normally and you’ll be fine. Take a deep breath.” He strokes his wrist gently with his thumb.

Kylo does. Is stunned to see two concerned pairs of eyes: one in the mirror and the other next to him. But why would they care? They should be happy to give him up, shouldn’t they? There’s no reason for them to be worried about him. They barely know him. “Okay,” he says.

“You’re doing well,” Phasma encourages him. 

“Very,” Hux agrees. “See? I think he’s passing us.” And there it is: the blur of brown streaking past them, the cruiser leaving them behind. He lets out a dry laugh. “Guess he didn’t want to drive behind this plodding bucket of bolts.”

Kylo glares at him. And he’s razzed Han a hundred times for keeping the Voyager, but it’s served them well so far. “Hey,” he protests.

“Apologies, behind this slow-moving but majestic land yacht, long may she sail.”

 

* * *

 

By tacit agreement, they do not stop in Ely. Kylo takes the first turnoff he finds; even Hux doesn’t argue this, maybe seeing the sense in it, maybe out of some unlikely kindness. Phasma offers to drive after they refuel the Plymouth at a vacant two-pump station, but he doesn’t feel steady enough for that, something calming about having the wheel between his hands. Eventually, Hux guides them to a state park, well off the highway, and they stuff a few bills in an envelope to cover the camping fees. It’s early in the season yet, still hot for desert camping, although that’s never deterred his father and his adopted uncles. They go year round.

Hux makes an immediate beeline for the small, wooden facilities down the campgrounds’ packed earth walkway, not waiting for leave from either of them. “I would commit a murder for a proper bath,” he swears. He’s dug some extra clothes out of the bag of castoffs in the back, settling for a shapeless gray sweater and skinny jeans. Phasma goes for her own shower when he returns, dressed and looking much happier. Or, less irritable, at least. The sweater droops off his shoulder; the jeans almost fit, although they’re about three inches too short. “I am seriously beginning to question your family’s taste in—everything,” he tells Kylo. He pinches the side of the sweater and holds it out from his waist. Expression skeptical.

“Only beginning?” He arches an eyebrow in response. Ignores the slight frizz in his stomach at the flash of bare skin as Hux tries to right the sweater's collar, tugging it straight. He’s all long, lean lines, delicate at the wrists and throat and ankles. His hair, dark with water, is dripping down his neck. And the clothes are a little ridiculous, yes, still, but less than the suit or his own and he looks… _good._  Damn good.

 _None of that now_ , Kylo chastises himself, stern, especially addressing his dick. _Don’t forget he’s the biggest asshole you’ve ever met_. _And meaner than a snake, to boot_. He kneels over the fire pit, over the makeshift pyramid of sticks and paper, and flicks Han’s battered Zippo, coaxing it to light.

Hux smiles. “True. I’m appalled, frankly.”

“The Solos are a dubious bunch,” Kylo admits. Curses under his breath at the lighter, which is older than he is. _Come on, come on_ , _please_ , he urges. Lets out a small, triumphant yell when the paper catches and rocks back on his heels, watching the flames spread, crackling. “My dad’s gotten busted for possession of stolen parts a dozen times. He and my uncles are always hatching some sort of scheme.”

Hux settles across from him, leaning back on his palms, extending both legs in front of him, toes tilted towards the fire. The cat immediately steps into his lap. “Hello, beautiful,” he greets her. To Kylo, he says: “So you’re only following in their footsteps, is it?”

“No,” Kylo says, considering this. “No, it wouldn’t have occurred to them to do what I did.” It wouldn’t have occurred to him either, not without Snoke, but that fact won’t save him, of course. “They’re not that kind of crooked. They’d never throw in with corporate types. Or politicians for that matter."

“But your father married your mother,” Hux points out. 

“In spite of the fact she’s a politician, not because of it. And it broke them up eventually. They couldn’t keep doing it. Their lives are too different.” And an adult can’t, Kylo knows, still be smarting over his parents’ divorce, his father’s leaving, not at age thirty. There’s no sympathy to be had, except in the way of everyone sharing how fucked up their families are around drinks, that sort of  _fuck them, I’m better off on my own_. But that—has always felt hollow, too.

He hums, thoughtful. “May have been for the best. It is sometimes, you know.”

“It didn’t feel that way.” He can feel the particular itch of Hux’s scrutiny, but he doesn’t quite look up, meet his eyes. “It felt like they gave up.” _On me, too_ , he doesn’t add.

“What are we talking about?” Phasma asks, coming up behind them. She’s wearing a red sweater now, with a fake fur collar. Is wringing out her hair with both hands.

“Family.”

“Hell,” she remarks. “Where did that rotgut get to?”

“What,” Hux asks. “Not close to the team of government scientists who built you?”

“That mouth of yours is going to get you into trouble, little man,” she warns as she sits. The fire casts shadows flickering over her face, dyes her platinum hair incarnadine.

He scoffs. “How do you suppose I ended up _here?”_

 _“_ And yet have learned nothing.”

“So what _about_ your family?” Kylo asks when they’ve cleaned up after dinner and arranged the sleeping bags around the fire. Full stomach and weariness and ebbed adrenaline making him braver, maybe. Or his curiosity is getting the better of him. In any case.

“Oh, there's not much to tell,” Phasma says. She’s got one arm tucked behind her head, looking up at the stars. Hux is curled on his side, but Kylo can tell he’s awake and listening, something about the lines of his back, still tense. “Skipped out when I was sixteen and I haven’t seen them since. My squadron was the last real family I had.”

Hux breaks the silence that follows. “What I cannot fathom is how you, of all people, got stranded in the land of eternal regrets.”

“Surely, you have some educated guesses, Mr. Swindler. Isn’t reading people most of your job? You certainly pegged Kylo as a desperate mark in a hurry.”

“ _Hey_.”

“Hard truths, love. I’ve never seen anyone with less control over his face.”

Hux is quiet, thinking. “No,” he admits finally. “I know you’re the most terrifying woman I’ve ever met, and that is the sum total.”

She laughs, both pleased and frightening. “Good. That’s all you need to know, isn’t it?”

“You really should have tried your hand at poker.”

“I don’t like gambling.”

“You picked a hell of a city to get stranded in then.”

“That’s the thing about being stranded.” Phasma sighs. It’s a surprisingly heavy sound. “You don’t get to pick.”

 

* * *

 

“Well,” Hux says. The three of them are standing around the Voyager, staring down into its complex metal and rubber innards. The sun’s steadily rising over the mountains, early morning rapidly giving way to midmorning as they contemplate the cold, mute engine and its component parts. “Shit.”

The van won’t start. 

“Fucking hunk of junk,” Kylo growls. He kicks the front right tire, feeling vengeful. Only manages to bruise his toe through his sneaker. The Voyager sits there, stolid, unmoved. “This is the last thing we need.”

“I’m guessing your American Automobile Association isn’t much of an option out here,” Phasma says. “Although my mobile’s quite dead by now. Hux?”

He shakes his head. “I only carry burners. No minutes.”

Not for the first time in his life, Kylo wishes he had inherited his father’s innate gift for mechanics. Han had tried to teach him plenty of times, and Uncle Chewie kept trying when he failed and gave up, but he doesn’t have the same feel for it. Or any feel for it. He can change a tire or oil, jump a dead battery, but that's it, nothing beyond the basics. Hux makes a thoughtful sound next to him, though, his hands planted on his narrow hips. He’s studying at the mess under the hood like it might make sense if he looks at it long enough. Chews his lower lip. “Bring me those tools, would you?” he asks.

Dumbfounded, Kylo obeys, hauling the clinking metal box out of the back of the van. It must weigh fifty pounds, but no surprise there. _A fully stocked toolkit is worth its weight in gold and more, kid_. “You think you can fix it?” he asks Hux.

His expression flickers between skeptical and fascinated. “I can try,” he says.

For the first hour, they both watch him work, which mostly seems to entail examining different parts in turn and muttering at them. Eventually, however, he snaps, “I could do without the audience, thank you,” with all of his characteristic hostility, and they both back off.

Phasma goes and sits back in the van; Kylo joins her. They stare out over the park, the road in the distance. Nothing but hills and a few tenacious pines. They haven’t seen another car since the state trooper yesterday. “Imagine being one of your pioneers,” Phasma says after a beat. She takes a sip from a bottle of water. The sun is beginning to bear down on them, relentless, cruel. “You see all this and think, ‘Whelp, nothing here. May as well keep going.’ You’re a country of lunatics, truly.”

Kylo shrugs. “Maybe they thought, ‘At least it’s somewhere new. At least it _might_ be better than where I’ve been.’”

“Yeah, or it’s a lot of cactuses and snakes and the picked-over, bleached skulls of those who tried before you.”

“Are all waitresses as morbid as you are?” he asks.

She chuckles. “Yes, we think bleak thoughts because we’re made to deliver waffles to entitled twats all day long.”

“Fair enough.” Kylo knows better than to ask if he’s one of the entitled twats. He’s never worked in the service industry, not even to “build character,” in the way a few of his friends had. Leia and Han had never gone in for that sort of thing. And he suspected they felt guilty, in those years after. Let him get away with more than he might have if they’d stayed together.

A blistering round of profanity explodes from the front of the van. “I suppose,” Phasma reflects. “If we have to be stuck with a no-good, petty thief, a no-good, petty car thief is at least useful. Potentially.” But there’s a certain amount of amusement and fondness belying her words.

Kylo shoots her a surprised look. “You like him,” he accuses her. Then amends: “Don’t you?”

“Against my better judgment, perhaps I’m beginning to, after these last few days,” she concedes. “But aren’t you, too?”

He laughs. “You’re kidding, right? I barely know the guy, and what I do know, I don’t like. And _he_ definitely hates _me_.”

Phasma doesn’t answer, but the corners of her mouth turn down in a smile. A new flurry of cursing sounds from the front of the van. “Better go make sure he doesn’t give himself a stroke, at least,” she says, offering him another bottle of water for Hux. “I don’t fancy making a home here, myself.” 

He accepts it, stands, and stretches, moving to do as she says. Halfway around the van, he turns back. “Hey Phasma,” he asks. “What about me? Do you like me? _”_ He can't think of the last time he asked someone that. Has too often felt assured of the answer, either way.

“Only time will tell, Kylo,” she says. Still with that odd inverse smile. “Time will tell.”

Hux is hanging halfway out from under the hood, skinny elbows and small, round ass in the air. His feet, still sandaled, dangle over the side. _Not_ a bad view, all things considered, especially with the way he’s wiggling slightly, whatever he’s bolting or unbolting rocking his thin frame. Kylo coughs, announcing his presence before he can linger too long, and Hux heaves himself upright. His bright hair is hanging over his face, which is flushed deep red and glossy with sweat. He accepts the water with a grunted thanks. Chugs most of it and dumps the remainder over his head, panting. “Try the ignition?” he gasps.

Kylo startles, realizing he’s been staring, tracking the progress of the water as it trickles down his rosy skin. “Right.” He hops in the driver’s seat. The cat is curled up next to him, unbothered by the interruption and the shouting, her sides heaving gently in sleep. He shakes his head at her and turns the key, getting only a grinding noise in response. The van judders under him. Hux waves at him to stop.

He joins him by the open hood again. He holds up a bizarre, corkscrewed contraption Kylo can’t identify. “I don’t know what this is, and it doesn’t _appear_ to be attached to anything, but when I take it out, the van won’t restart.”

Kylo shrugs, inexpressive, knowing he can’t help. He’s never been able to explain his father’s restorations. He assumes that’s part of what keeps his customers coming back—no one else understands what he did in the first place. “Leave it in?” he suggests.

Hux scratches the back of his neck, his expression perplexed. It looks like he may be starting to burn, that it’s not just the heat reddening his skin. “Yeah, I guess I will. Shouldn’t be long, I think I’ve got everything almost sorted.” He rattles off a technical explanation that Kylo doesn’t fully understand.

“I’ll take your word for it,” he says. Smiles at Hux’s bemused expression. “You’re doing great. No one ever gets this far with my dad’s rebuilds. You’re—kind of amazing at this. Which. I guess that makes sense. You’ve always been good with machines, huh?”

He gives him a long look, then shakes his head. Wipes his hands on a grease-stained rag. “I’m trying to think of the last time I fixed something instead of taking it apart,” he tells him. “It’s nice. In a way. Not the—” he gestures. “—heat and the being stuck in the bloody desert. But. Fixing it.”

And he could go back to the van, make sure they’re ready to go. There’s no reason to say anything else. No reason at all, really to tell him, “Thanks. I mean, for this. Yesterday, too. In general. You’ve been helpful. I know you didn’t have to be. And I wouldn’t have gotten this far. Without you or Phasma. Most people—wouldn’t have, you know?”

Hux lets out a breath. “We all want to get where we’re going, Kylo. Odd as it may seem, you’re our best shot at that. We’re not going to turn on you at the first opportunity. It wouldn’t be sensible.”

And, right, this is a mercenary arrangement. He gets that, too. It’s the kind of people they are. They have to be. Still. “I thought you weren’t going to put your faith in strangers.”

“Maybe Phasma’s right. After a certain point, it’s not like we have much choice, do we? We have to trust each other—a bit.” He turns a wrench slowly in his hands; the metal catches the sunlight. “I don’t find that easy. I believe we’re all out for our own self-interest. But perhaps, in this case, our self-interest can be the same. For the duration, at least.”

“Right,” Kylo says. “Until Montana.” On impulse, he sticks out his hand.

Hux grins, and it’s close to breathtaking how that changes his face, brightens his eyes, eases the severity around his mouth and between his eyebrows. He takes Kylo’s hand and pumps it. “Until Montana,” he agrees.

Kylo’s halfway back to Phasma when Hux calls after him, “Of course, if you think I’m going to stop being an utter prat at every opportunity, you’ve another thing coming.” Waves his middle and index finger at him. 

He flips him the bird in return but he smiles back, too. “I’d expect nothing less.”

 

* * *

 

They’ve almost got the Voyager packed up and ready to go again, water jugs refilled, campsite set to rights at Phasma’s insistence, (Uncle Chewie's voice echoing her, approving), sleeping bags rolled and stowed. But Hux is scrambling around the back of the van, moving gear, frantic, checking under the seats. “What’d you lose?” Phasma asks. “I still have your watch right here.” She spins it around one finger.

“Not what,” Hux says. He’s clicking his tongue. Stoops to peers under the Voyager itself, then drops flat to his stomach to get a better look. “ _Who_. Millie.”

Kylo glances at Phasma, questioning. She shrugs. “Who?” she echoes. 

“The cat,” he explains, impatient. Stalking back toward the campsite.

“Hux,” Kylo tries, groaning. “We really don’t have time for this. We’ve lost half a day already. Maybe she likes it out here. And you’re not going to find her if she doesn’t want to be found. Cats are like that.”

He has no idea, in fact, what cats are like, never having lived with one—he prefers dogs, if anything—but it seems like something a cat would do. Disappear for no reason.

“I will rip every spark plug out of that van,” Hux warns him. His expression both menacing and distressed in one before he turns away, cups his hands around his mouth. “Millie! Come now, sweetheart, it’s time to go.”

And for a moment, there’s nothing. Just the still scrub and cactuses. Everything else with any sense is under the shade at the moment. Which Kylo would like to be, too. Thank fuck the Voyager’s air conditioning is in working order. “Hux—“ he starts to say.

But then there’s movement. Her color doesn’t stand out against the dry, red earth, but there she is, the cat, bounding toward them. When she gets closer, Kylo can see a dark lump clutched in her jaws. She comes to a stop at Hux’s feet, depositing the little bundle in front of his sandals. 

“What’s this?” he asks, crouching down. “A present? Oh, very well done, darling. That’s excellent work, truly. You’re so clever.”

“I _knew_ that little monster could have managed out here,” Kylo mutters at Phasma. To Hux, he says louder, making sure his voice carries. “No dead rodents in the Voyager.”

“Of course not,” Hux says. Lifting the cat into his arms. “We have food. Regardless. Very clever,” he tells her.  

They’re finally underway again, the Voyager rumbling like it had never coughed and sputtered and refused to start—it might be running a little better, in fact—before it occurs to Kylo to ask, “Millie?”

“Short for Millicent,” Hux tells him. As though this is the most natural thing in the world. “She looks like a Millicent, I think.” He holds up the cat, inspecting her face.

He laughs. “Has anyone _looked_ like a Millicent since 1953?” 

“You’ve built yourself a glass house when it comes to choosing names, _Kylo Ren_. What sort of alias is that anyway?” He doesn’t need to check to know Hux is scowling at him. He can practically feel the sting of it on his cheek. “Although you hardly need one, trading on the family business, as you do.”

That’s meant to prick at him.

And Kylo doesn’t think he’s ever met anyone who knew so well which barbs to use, or so quickly.

“It’s not an _alias_ ,” he corrects, defensive. And he can’t explain what it’s been like, his whole life, to be defined by these other people, his parents and uncle and grandfather, who died an obscure eccentric but had been as notable as his mother in his day. Kylo has never entered a room without expectations, never introduced himself without a reaction. His identity—his family’s identity—preceded him everywhere. “It’s a way to be. Just myself, I guess.” He gestures vaguely. “Not so defined by who my parents are.”

Snoke had understood that, had seemed to know what he needed. _Let me help you make_ your _mark_ , he urged Kylo. _You can build something of your own, something that’s only yours_.

Hux is quiet, considering this. “Armitage,” he offers, finally. “My given name,” he says in response to Kylo’s confused face. 

“Armitage Hux,” he echoes. “That’s—a lot, huh.”

“It is. Hux will continue to suffice.”

After a beat, he turns his head, looking back at Phasma. Kylo uses the rearview. She glares at them in return. “What? Are we having a moment? I didn’t realize.”

They both wait, expectant.

“Oh fine,” she says, waving a hand. “It’s Christine. Are you happy now?”

Kylo offers her a broad smile. “Yes. Very. Thank you.”

“Yes, well, the first one of you to call me that is losing a testicle.”

“Phasma it is,” Hux agrees quickly.

 

* * *

 

The rest of the day passes without incident. A few cars pass them on the road; they spot some hikers in the distance, once, but it’s quiet. _They’re_ quiet: Phasma reading, Hux staring out the window or studying the maps. Periodically, he offers Kylo a suggestion, _that back road_ or _your father has this place marked_ , or makes an observation about the landscape, or asks him a question, seemingly at random. About San Francisco Bay. Startup culture. Personal questions, too. Where he took his gap year. _Spain._ What sort of cars Han fixes. _Not only Plymouths…although a lot of fucking Plymouths_. It’s like the idle chatter of the first night, but it’s easier now. He finds himself responding in kind, asking Hux about his childhood. _Ireland, then England_. Whether he went to boarding school. _Worse, military school_. Had any siblings. _A half-sister, Rey, but I haven’t seen her since we were small. She takes more after our mother than I do._

And it hits Kylo, for the first time in days, that he doesn’t know how Leia is. How she’s handling all this. Whether she spoke to Han after—how that had been for the two of them. They speak very little, haven’t since he finished school. 

“All right?” Hux asks, pulling him out of it.

“Yeah,” he says. “Sorry, was just thinking about something.”

“Well, don’t injure yourself.” His mouth tilts, but it’s not the harsh mockery of before. Something milder.

“Ha. I won’t.” He looks him in the eye for a moment too long, lost in the green, before he jerks his gaze back to the road. Face warming.

 _Get your shit together, man_.

"Hey, looks like we missed a box," Phasma says from the back seat, interrupting for the first time all afternoon. Apparently, she’s bored of the Western. Is rooting around under the seats now, dragging something out from under the foremost passenger bench. “I'm not surprised. It was really crammed under here.”

"Oh yeah?" Kylo swallows the dread creeping up his throat. He had hoped, since it didn't turn up on the first pass, that this particular collection of items, which he’d first discovered at the tender age of fifteen, might be missing from the Voyager. “Probably more junk, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

She rifles through it. Paper shifting and the crinkle of cellophane. ”Yeah, you’re probably right, it's got all these magazines and . . . condoms . . . and . . . oh my word, is this a sex box?"

If he wasn't driving, he would cover his face with his hands. Since he _is_ driving, finding the nearest canyon and pitching them into might be the next best option. A fiery explosion at least _feels_ preferable to chronicling Han and Chewie and Lando’s sexual history from the past four decades.

Phasma chuckles. ”Relax, Kylo. Lots of people's parents have a sex box. I'm sure mine did. And Armitage’s. Well, probably not Armitage’s. My, my, _Playboy_ and _Playgirl?_ How inclusive."

He groans. They are a strict _live and let live_ family, which had been a relief when he worked out his own preferences, but that has always been distinct from knowing who and what his _parents_ and his uncles found appealing. Or thinking too hard about the fact that he has uncles at all, in the way some people have uncles who aren’t related to them, who are _dear friends of the family_. He had always done his best never to ask. 

"And who is this incredibly dashing gentleman with the mustache and the cape and no shirt in the photograph? He is a stunner, if I may say.”

He bangs his head, just once, against the steering wheel.

“Hey, Phas?" Hux interjects, finally, mercifully. His voice nonchalant. His hand rests on Kylo’s shoulder like this, too, is casual. "Please stop tormenting Kylo?"

"Why?"

"Because he's driving the van and thus could kill us all?"

She snorts. ”Men can be such babies about these things. Older people have sex. _Lots_ of sex. And given the size of this bottle of lube—”

“ _Phasma._ ”

“Oh, all right.” There’s the sound of her digging through the box, thankfully without further commentary. “Hey, there’s a camera in here, too.”

“The Polaroid?” Kylo asks. He hasn’t seen it in years, although it used to be a regular feature on family vacations. “Can’t imagine it still works. Or that the film’s any good.” Unless Han’s used it recently.

No, he’s not going to think about that either, given where Phasma found it—

“Only one way to find out,” she says. “Look over here, Millicent, darling. Yes, good. Say: _mice_.” There’s a flash behind them, the whirring sound of the camera churning out a photograph, Phasma waving it through the air as the picture develops. “Well, what do you know.”

 

* * *

 

They spend the night at another rest stop, this one smaller, not as busy as the one on Rte. 93, only a few big trucks parked on the other side of the lot. It’s gotten easier, sleeping in the van, although after two nights out in the desert, the fluorescent lights seem almost wrong, diminishing their view of the stars. That’s why he’s restless, Kylo decides, and he’s not alone. Phasma shuffles behind him, then groans. “No winning on this trip. Too quiet, too loud, too bright, too dark. Why do you people like cars so much? They’re an abysmal way to travel. You can fly across this country in a matter of hours and you lot would rather it take _weeks_.”

“That’s how you see it,” Kylo tells her. Feeling, maybe, like he should speak up for driving. That’s what Han would say, at least. “How you get to know it. If you drive through a place, you learn its—its shape, I guess. How it’s put together. How it changes.”

“Give me a airplane any day.”

“Where would you have gone?” he asks her. “If we—if you’d been able to buy a plane ticket? Would you have gone back to England?” It’s the sort of question he can pose in the dark, none of them in view of each other. More than personal than he has a right to know, yes, but there’s the impulse still, too, to reach out, to ask, that he rarely feels. Or didn’t, before these last few days. He doesn’t know if it’s the scenery and the road, or if it’s them, Hux and Phasma, that seem to demand it. Maybe both. No one asks serious questions in the worlds he’s inhabited. They think they’re serious, of course, the fate of the digital world and what’s the next major trend, the next viral app, but it’s all big and glowing and empty.

“Perhaps,” Phasma allows. Her voice drifts over the seats. “Or to South America. Hong Kong. Just somewhere else. I’ve never really thought of England as home, mind you. It’s simply another place to be.” 

Hux doesn’t respond immediately. “Ireland,” he says softly, almost a sigh, when Kylo’s begun to think that he’s asleep. Something in his intonation shifts when he says it, too, posh crispness unspooling into a brogue—green hills and sea air. “I’d see if I could find my family—my mother and my sister.”

The way he says it, yearning—Kylo nearly wants to reach over the seat and squeeze his hand.

He’s traveled the world, of course, with his parents when he was younger and during his gap year and after college. He’s never been prevented from going anywhere, in fact, the entire globe endlessly accessible. Not that it had ever mattered, because he rarely felt inclined to go anywhere in particular, other than a near-constant desire to be _not here_. Whatever that meant, wherever that was. San Francisco had been his home for years, but, as well as he’d known it, he never felt that way. _It’s simply another place to be_ , Phasma said. He recognizes that feeling.

“I don’t know,” he says, although no one’s asked him what he would do. “I don’t know where I would go.” Even where he is going—and he has vague memories of it, foothills and dense woods and a creek, he thinks—is an idea in the abstract more than a place.

He can’t find sleep after that, even though the others do, their breathing slowing, and eventually, he leaves the Voyager, shutting the door as carefully as he can. Double checks to make sure Millicent is nestled in her favored spot next to Hux before heading towards the squat concrete rest stop. There is, as he hoped, a payphone still installed there, on the back wall. He shuffles a few quarters out of his pocket. Knows the number by heart still.

He doesn’t think anyone will answer, not at two o’clock in the morning local time. It rings once, twice, and then again. Kylo’s about to hang up when she answers. “Hello?” That familiar weariness in her voice, present no matter what time of day it is.

For a moment, he doesn’t say anything. “Ben?” Leia asks. And does she sound hopeful? Yes, he thinks, tired, but—maybe, too, like she might want to talk to him. “Or, Kylo? Is that you?”

“Mom?” 

She lets out a breath. “Ben, are you all right?”

 _Where are you?_ she doesn’t ask.

“I’m all right,” he says. “I’m safe. I just—yeah. I wanted you to know that. I’m all right.”

“Good, that’s good,” she tells him. “Thank you for calling me.”

“Mom? I’m—“ His voice catches.

“It’s okay,” she tells him.

 

* * *

 

In the morning, Phasma takes one look at his face and offers to drive. _I’ll go wherever you say_ , _but you really ought to take a break, given the state of you_. Kylo doesn’t bother explaining that he’d spent more than an hour talking to Leia—doesn’t know that he could, why it had been so important to hear her voice. She hadn’t tried to change his mind, hadn’t asked where he was going. And he had wanted to be suspicious of her, thinking of call traces and other action movie staples. At minimum, her caller ID would have picked up the area code. But nothing happened. Nothing has happened. _Are you going to tell them_ , he asked her, towards the end, meaning the cops. _That you heard from me_.

 _I don’t know_ , she admitted.

He lay awake another two hours after that, thinking, only finding sleep right before dawn.

So Kylo doesn’t put up much of a fight about driving; in the thin morning light, he feels leaden and translucent all at once. Stretches out on one of the back seat benches, listening to the tires hum over the pavement and the low babble of Hux’s conversation with Phasma, the two of them remarking about the road, trading stories about Vegas, referring to the map, etc. Briefly, they find a radio station, he thinks, but it’s gone again before he can recognize the music, lost to static. The landscape blurs by through the window above him: the desert, the hills beginning to shift, the subtle way they’ve changed as they go farther north not lost on him.

And he isn’t worried, he realizes, closing his eyes. Not about waking up and finding the van someplace else, at least, someplace he doesn't want to be. Everything after, yes. He still doesn’t know what— But this, now, it’s all right, he thinks. He is. The last thing he’s aware of before he drifts off is a slight weight settling on his chest. The cat, Millie, rumbles against his sternum. He lifts one hand, brushing it over her fur, tentative. _Our secret_ , he mumbles at her.

He comes to, groggy, late in the day, the sky darkening outside, to the sound of Hux and Phasma speaking in low, urgent tones. “Look, the map says it should be here—“

“Well, check it again because I don’t see a damn thing, Armitage. Just more rocks. And cacti.”

“What?” Kylo asks, sitting up, displacing Millicent. “What’s the matter?” 

They’re off Rte. 93 again, as they have been intermittently the last several days. He picked this detour himself that first morning at _Delilah’s_ , remembering it was one of Han’s favored back roads. The Voyager is rolling deeper into the hillsides, the terrain growing rockier around them, the vegetation still more sparse, except for spotty tufts of sagebrush. But there’s nothing else in view. He frowns. “Where are we?”

“Oh, you’re awake,” Hux says. His frown clear in profile. “According to your map, there’s supposed to be a town here, but we’re well past—“

“There _is_ a town here,” Kylo insists. He rubs his eyes, still disoriented, trying to clear his head. “It’s on the map. My Dad’s friend Wedge lives out here.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t see—“

They come around a bend, and for a moment, his spirits lift, seeing the shadows of buildings, but then the lights hit them, and he can see the ramshackle state of the place, the skeletal remains of a main street, the boarded up windows, the splitting cracks between the boards, all of it abandoned to disuse.

“The _was_ a town here,” Phasma observes. “I don’t think there has been for some time.” 

“But.” He tries to bury the whine that’s creeping into his voice. Tries to breathe past the constriction in his chest. And it’s not important, only a town he’s never been to, but still— “There’s _supposed_ to be.”

“Kylo,” Hux says, placatingly. He’s turned in his seat, trying to catch his eye, his attention. “It’s okay—“

He glowers at him before dropping his head, not quite able to put it between his knees. “It’s _not._ ”

“Phasma,” Hux says. “Best to pull over, I think.”

“But there’s not a goddamn thing here.” Kylo drags both hands over his face. “Fuck. There’s nothing anywhere.”

"Phasma, please. Anywhere here will do. _”_ Hux’s voice is sharper now.

“Right, sorry.” The Voyager slows, crunching gravel, and comes to a stop at the side of the road, on the outskirts of the small ruin.

He buries his face in his hands, the reality of the past week descending all at once. And what the fuck does he think he’s doing, how he could have thought he—

The door next to him slides open.

“Come on, Kylo. That’s quite enough of that.” Hux tugs on his arm, coaxing him out of the van. “Let’s just—get some air.”

He leads him out of the Voyager and out into the scrub, away from the desiccated remains of the town. There’s little here, except for a few towering Saguaro cacti and the rising incline of the mountain; Kylo doesn’t know its name. Everything has a name out here, every stack of rocks, but this place, it’s as though it never existed.

They're so far from— _anything_.

He kicks the ground, sending a spray of dirt and rocks flying. “ _God fucking dammit,”_ he shouts.Lets loose every other raw word he can think of, picks up a handful of jagged stones and flings them out into the empty ground. “ _Shitting. FUCK_.” Usually, it feels good, satisfying, to let go like this, setting free every desolate part of him, submitting to his own anger and disappointment, giving over to them, flinging them at the nearest target. But he can only hear his own voice echoing back, how pathetic and brittle it sounds, nothing to any of this, the towering hillside, the stars beginning to gleam in the sky above. Indifferent.

Kylo sinks down onto the hardpan, drawing his knees up, pulling at his hair. He winces when Hux comes to stand over him, both eyebrows raised as though to ask, _Are we quite finished?_ He forgot he had an audience. “I bet you’re dying to say I told you so,” he tells him, hoarse. 

“Well, it’s no fun when you do it for me,” Hux reproaches. He sighs, then settles on the ground next to him, easing his legs out. “We’re going to be perfectly fine, you know. We have more than enough petrol to get back to the highway.” 

“We lost half a day,” he replies dully. “Again.”

“It’s fine," he repeats. "We’re not on any sort of schedule. And maybe this is good in a way, we can lie low for the night. Just in case.”

“There’s nothing out here.”

Hux laughs, surprisingly gently. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Kylo, but there’s been next to nothing _everywhere_ we’ve been the past few days. It’s not a new condition. We'll manage.”

“I guess.” Kylo wipes his face on his arm, then turns away, not wanting that scrutiny right now. And he’s not—not _crying_ , not exactly.

“This is about more than getting a bit off track, I take it,” Hux says. Then offers: “Want to talk about it?”

He can only stare at him, incredulous.

He nudges him with an elbow. “Go on, then, I promise not to mock you for at least five minutes.”

Kylo sniffles a wet laugh, then sucks in a breath. “I only—I wanted _one_ thing to go right, to do something well, and everything keeps getting so fucked up and it’s me, it _has_ to be me. _I’m_ just a fuck-up. I always have been. You were right, I’m impulsive. I always assume everything’s going to work out and—I never think anything through. I don’t think I even know _how_. And this is that again, and I don’t know what I’m _doing_ , Hux. I screwed up, really screwed up, and there’s no way to fix it. I’m just—”

 _so lost_ , he doesn’t finish.

Although it seems like Hux might hear it anyway. He squeezes his arm.

He doesn’t answer immediately otherwise, maybe considering this, taking in the flood of what Kylo's said. As though he can make sense of it. Maybe only thinking of what to say. Finally, he shakes his head. “Look, you’re not a fuck-up, okay? You made some bad choices. We all do. That’s normal. It’s human.”

“Right, like you make so many mistakes.”

“Kylo,” Hux says seriously. “I’m a criminal. I came quite close to ending up in the trunk of a bloody Cadillac out in the desert, like some awful cliché. One doesn’t have that sort of life because one’s made _good_ decisions.“

“Well, I don’t know about either of you, but I’ve never made a wrong move in my life,” Phasma says airily, coming to stand beside them. “I take it we are spending the night here?”

Hux turns to him, questioning. They both do.

“Yeah,” Kylo says. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

Phasma surprises him by gently tousling his hair before she sits on Hux’s other side, looking up at the sky. “It really is something out here. I’ve never seen so many stars. That’s the Milky Way, isn't it?”

They both join her in admiring the darkening sky. “I believe it is,” Hux says. “Perhaps you ought to take up astronomy, wherever you go. I always rather liked that in school. The idea that we can navigate simply by finding the right star. Useful.” 

“Geology, too,” Phasma says. “Would be nice to know what all this is.”

“And ecology.”

 

They don’t speak for some time after that, except to try to identify such and such constellation, inventing new ones when they can’t, raising a hand to connect the dots with a pointed finger. “That is _obviously_ a cat,” Phasma remarks at one point. “See? The ears are right there. And the whiskers on either side.”

“Millie will be pleased,” Hux says. He’s shuffled a little closer to Kylo as the night’s come on, the air cooling, and he can feel his faint warmth next to him, the way he shivers occasionally. It would be such an easy thing, a dangerously easy thing, to put an arm around him, pull him closer. “You left her in the van, I trust?”

Phasma murmurs an affirmative. “Not that anything so mundane as a car door seems to prevent that beast from doing exactly as she likes.”

“Can’t think of anyone else like that.”

“Ha-ha, so glib, Armitage. May I ask: what is it with you and her anyway? You hardly strike me as some tenderhearted animal lover.”

Hux shrugs. “Always wanted a cat. Was never allowed one. And then I didn’t. As you don’t sometimes, I mean, with things you want when you get older. You put them aside. It seemed like—what’s that word people overuse? Kismet. Providence. To escape the city and find that all at once. Something I’d wanted before all that.” 

Kylo turns to study him. He’s leaned back, still looking up, a thoughtful smile crossing his face. For a moment, their eyes meet, and he goes hot, then cold in rapid succession; a fluttering sensation quivers under his ribs before he jerks his gaze away.

Unmistakable, the desire to kiss him right now. He swallows. _Well, fuck_. “That—makes sense,” he agrees. “Something you’d forgotten you wanted, even.”

He can feel Hux’s eyes on him, his attention and curiosity, which have been there since they first met, the edge of them, keen. 

“Yes, exactly like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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	3. Idavada—The Continental Divide—Big Sky Country

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo, Hux, and Phasma make their way through Idaho and into Montana.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An alert: Implied/referenced drug use becomes actual drug use in this chapter. Just of the herbal variety.

“So,” Kylo asks. “Any last words?”

They’re parked under a blue rectangular sign, which proclaims _Welcome to Idaho_ in curling white print. The three of them not facing it, but rather looking back over Nevada, over the seemingly infinite expanse of mountain and desert, the thin band of the road carving its way through it all, as though barely scratched into the rock, so slight in comparison. The three of them lean against the back of the Voyager, regarding it, everything they’ve crossed to come this far. Phasma snaps a Polaroid of the scene, another of the sign. She’s taken to doing that.

“No,” she answers finally. “No, I think I’m all set.”

“Agreed,” Hux says.

“Yeah, same.” Once Kylo might have offered a _Fuck you, Nevada_ or a _fucking finally_ , and he feels that, to an extent, the relief to be clear of the state when it seemed they never would be. But there was more to it than that, those nights out in the Basin, under the stars. “Let’s go.”

The terrain ahead isn’t so different, as isolated as where they’ve been; they’re crossing an imaginary line, he knows, meaningless to the land itself, which stretches on and on, but relief still washes through him. Relief—and apprehension. They’re halfway to their destination or more now; although the route through Idaho will be as winding, as circuitous in some ways, Montana waits beyond it. He doesn’t think he imagines the green of vegetation, life, quickening to the east. They have more mountains to cross first, a far less arbitrary boundary than the one they just did. And then.

The van goes quiet as they venture into Idaho, not the surly or uncomfortable silences of the first day in the van. More contemplative than that. More like a held breath, the three of them watching the scenery, each lost in their own thoughts.

Kylo’s veer, as they have lately, towards Hux, and he struggles not to stare at him, settles for darting the occasional glance at the passenger seat. He has his legs tucked under him, his chin propped in his hand, his elbow resting against the window. May be dozing gently behind his sunglasses. And it hasn’t gone away since the night in the ghost town, that faint tremor of _want_ between Kylo’s ribs. Curiosity, too: what his mouth tastes like or the skin above his pulse or at the interior of his wrist. How red his hair might be elsewhere. How he prefers to be touched, if he does, if—

He’s never lacked for that, for anything or anyone, although after enough time passed he often gave over to the resentment that most people wanted him for his name, his position, for the opportunities he might offer them, not for who he was, not because they preferred _him_. Had ended more than a few relationships for that reason, feeling petulant about it, used. Even though that was how everyone he knew operated. How he did. Even though he expected it in some ways, welcomed it. Everything was casual; everyone only wanted to feel good and get somewhere while they were at it, and why not have both? Why not.

Hux shifts next to him, trying to get comfortable. He grumbles quietly and turns over, facing Kylo now. His eyebrows pinch together; his full mouth turns down. The sunglasses have slipped down his nose somewhat, showing the faint blue of his eyelids, his downy lashes. “Are we there yet?” he asks without opening his eyes. Dryly, not serious, although his voice is also sleep-roughened, making the question sound almost sincere.

“No,” Kylo says. Trying to sound exasperated, sardonic in return, not gentle—not  _fond_. “Not yet. Stop asking.”

 

* * *

 

There is no shortage of campsites in this part of the state; the deeper they venture into the Rockies, the more hiking trails and campgrounds they find. Hux has a knack for picking the most obscure ones, well off the beaten path. They have all developed a knack for this now, a routine: unpacking what they need from the Voyager, for cobbling together dinner from what they’ve gathered along the way, convenience store staples to alleviate the monotony of corn chowder. Kylo can even get a fire to light on the first try now. They take their turns cleaning up. There’s a rhythm to it, an ease. Unfamiliar, but—

Well, it’s kind of nice.

“Oh, thank _Christ_ ,” Hux says as they’re heading back to the van from another drippy, cold outdoor shower. He’s smiling, almost grinning, pointing at an icon on the sign, a purple square meaning _laundry_ and an arrow indicating its direction. “I think these jeans could stand on their own by now.”

Kylo laughs. “Clean clothes are the height of luxury, huh?”

“I’m going to roll around in the detergent, too, just you wait.”

Which is how the three of them end up sitting on a scuffed table in an empty campground laundromat, each wearing one of Uncle Chewie’s cast-off XXXL t-shirts—crammed at the very bottom of the giveaway bag—watching their makeshift wardrobes spin in the rickety dryer, around and around. The shirts hang to mid-thigh even on Kylo and Phasma, although they’re all still revealing a not-significant amount of skin, and he’s making a concerted effort not to stare at Hux’s bare legs, crossed at the ankle, feet kicking. He’s equally determined not to move _too_ much, given the…delicacy of the situation. Folds his hands in his lap.

On his other side, a flash of color catches his eye, the bottom half of a tattoo showing beneath the hem of Phasma’s shirt. “What does _per mare, per terram_ mean?” he asks, craning his neck to read the scroll.

“None of your business,” Phasma says at the same time Hux explains, “By land, by sea. It’s—”

She glares at him, warning, over Kylo’s shoulder.

“Oh, please,” Hux says. “You know everything about us. How long do you intend to continue this elaborate international woman of mystery performance?”

“Indefinitely, obviously,” she replies. “Just because you knobs spill your life stories to every stranger you meet doesn’t mean I have to do the same.”

Hux snorts. “As though I haven’t said more about myself to you and Kylo than anyone else in the last two decades. But suit yourself, _Christine_.”

Even sitting between them, Kylo doesn’t see so much as feel the passage of the blow, like a breeze on his neck, and then Hux’s, “Ow, Jesus _fuck_ , Phasma, that was my bloody ear for fuck’s sake,” rings out loudly in the room.

Later, much later, after they’ve eaten and their conversation has drifted through any number of idle musings, as it has done these past nights, inexorably, when the fire has begun to dwindle and Kylo’s almost ready to sleep and close to something like contentment, like peace even, Phasma sighs. “Fine, then,” she says, halfway to herself. “But if we’re doing this, we’re doing it properly.” She brings out a small twist of paper. A joint, he realizes, belatedly. “Hand me that Zippo, Kylo.”

“I thought you sold it all,” Hux accuses. He’s tucked into his sleeping bag but not sprawled out yet, knees drawn up while he watches the flames. Millie’s ears and eyes show above the nylon border, the rest of her snuggled down in the bag. Despite their best efforts, they’ve yet to find an effective way to keep her in the Voyager against her wishes. 

“I sold most of it.” Phasma brings the joint to her lips; the lighter ignites on the first try for her. “Thought it couldn’t hurt to keep a little, especially with all the _catfighting_.”

True to form, Hux treats her to the V sign. “Yes, but that would have been useful, you know. The other night.”

Meaning the night in the ghost town. Kylo flushes slightly. Strange, the desire to apologize for it.

“Oh, you had it well in hand,” she says, dismissive. Takes a lengthy puff before handing it off. “Trust me, it’s _much_ more necessary now.”

“That traumatic, is it?” The smoke thickens Hux’s voice. His fingers brush Kylo’s as he stretches to pass him the joint; the contact sends a shiver through him. “Your origin story, as it were?”

“Do you want to hear this or not, you nosy git?” 

Kylo inhales deeply, taking the smoke into his lungs, too quickly at first, his technique rusty. The first time he’d done this, he’d been fourteen or fifteen, with Uncle Lando and Han. (His mother was furious.) He coughs a few times, much the way he did then. “ _I_ want to hear it,” he tells her as he returns the joint. “Please, Phasma?”

“I wasn’t much more than a kid when I signed up,” she starts. “Seemed like the easiest to get out at the time.”

It’s not a quick story, longer than the ones Hux has told about his past or Kylo about his, and it circles the globe more than once. Iraq. Afghanistan. “So many bloody deserts,” she sighs in the middle. The two of them sit and listen and smoke, until the night blurs at the edges around them and Phasma’s voice carries them along, missions and lost friends and places neither of them has ever been. She wandered, after. _The way you do without seeing the world around you, not really. I don’t even remember all of it._ Eventually she reached the States, went to stay with a comrade in Vegas. A promise of work and a place to stay. “Sometimes you trust the wrong people; that’s the rub.” 

“You got conned,” Hux observes. Thoughtful. None of his usual jeering in it. “And no way to get home after, I expect?”

Phasma pauses. Is her face red or is it the firelight? “There may have been, er. An incident following that. At the Bellagio fountains,” she confesses. “Court fees are astronomical in this country.”

“I _knew_ you had a record.” He chuckles.

“Oh, do shut up, it was only a misdemeanor. I paid the fine.” She sniffs. “But yes. That was four years ago. It’s been difficult to get ahead since then. And after a while, you just end up—”

“Stuck,” Kylo finishes. He’s lying on his back, arms crossed under his head, admiring the sky. Turns his head to look at her.

Phasma pitches the last nubbin of the joint into the flames. “Yeah,” she agrees. “Stuck.”

 

* * *

 

It becomes one of those nights that doesn’t quite end after that, less because of the high, which is mild, than because they keep talking, posing the sort of questions Kylo would have been embarrassed to ask or answer once. About dreams. Regrets. He doesn’t remember all that they say, but he remembers their faces in the flickering light. The quiet way Hux looked at him when he admitted, _I don’t think I ever really knew what I wanted. I only knew I was supposed to know and I didn’t_. Phasma’s laughter well after two as she told a story about a jalopy stuck in the mud. It had involved a llama, too, he thinks. Hux’s voice, soft, saying, _What I could do is not care. What he said, what he thought. What anyone did._

He doesn’t know when he falls asleep, gazing up at the swirl of stars.

They rise midmorning, take their time packing up the Voyager, and Kylo doesn’t protest when Phasma asks to drive. _Asks_ , rather than offers. Something she wants, or needs maybe, her eyes brighter than the day before, and he can understand that. He sits in the back, rummages through the paperbacks until he finds a Jack London novel, the cover faded, spiderwebbed with creases, and cracks it open. He couldn’t say the last time he read for fun, had never taken to it as a kid, lacking the patience for it, the ability to sit still. But there’s something soothing about it now, and he finds himself drawn into the story, the struggle and the imposing vistas, not so different from the stark landscape rushing past the window.

“… _such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive,_ ” he reads aloud after a while, unable to resist it.

“What’s that?” Hux asks, twisting to frown at him.

“This line here,” Kylo explains. Clears his throat. Unsure why self-consciousness is creeping over him. Why he read it in the first place. “It just, um. Struck me.”

“Self-awareness is happiness’s greatest enemy?” Hux laughs. “How terribly American.”

He flicks him off, more or less a daily occurrence by now. Sometimes hourly. “I don’t know if it’s that, exactly. So much as there’s a kind of joy in—being. Maybe. Not thinking so much.”

He taps his lips, as though sincerely considering this. His expression flickers, unreadable, before he grins at Kylo. “Intriguing. But I’m not so sure you need an incentive to think _less_ , personally.”

“Asshole.”

“Pillock,” Hux retorts. More teasing than sharp. But then his eyes widen, and he looks back, past Kylo. Alarmed. “Oh, no. Oh, _shit_.”

“What? What’s the matter?” Cold washes through Kylo when he turns, the red and blue lights flashing there. No siren, but the message is clear: pull over.

“Bollocks,” Phasma says. Her blue eyes meet Kylo’s in the rearview as she slows and maneuvers the Voyager onto the shoulder. They’re on a winding incline, curving up one side of a mountain. Maybe the mountain where he gets caught. Maybe— “I’m going to handle this, all right, Kylo? Just stay calm. And, ah. Best do something with your hair? Your face, if you can?”

He hurries to comply, knotting the mess of his hair at the back of his head. He accepts Hux’s sunglasses, too. Shrugs on a hoodie from the bag. Trying to look as little like himself as possible.

“Phasma,” Hux says in an undertone, a question or a warning, as a state trooper, in tan and khaki, a brown felt Stratton shadowing his face, approaches the car.

“I’ve got it,” she promises. _Trust me_ , she doesn’t need to say; it’s in her voice. She rolls down the window. “Good afternoon, officer… _Plutt_ ,” she says primly, reading his name tag. “I do hope we were going the proper speed.”

“You’ve gotta taillight out, ma'am,” he informs her. Sounding bored. Unimpressed. “License and registration, please.”

Kylo suppresses a groan. Who knows whether the Voyager’s paperwork is remotely up-to-date. And his father’s name will be on it—a dead giveaway, definitely, a reason to ask for Hux’s identification and his own.

But all Phasma says is, “why, yes, of course,” producing her license while Hux digs through the glove compartment.

The trooper squints at the yellowed square of paper. “This says this vehicle is registered to one Lando Calrissian and you ain’t him.”

Kylo lets out a breath. True, the van had been Lando’s to begin with, when it was brand new and un-scuffed—legend had it his father won it in a poker game—and of course, neither of them bothered to change the name in forty years. 

Phasma doesn’t miss a beat. “That’s true, officer. You see, Lando lent us the van, sweet, kind, good soul that he is. My friend back there.” She jerks a thumb at Kylo, who struggles to keep still. “He’s bereaved, you see. We’re bringing him to the family farm near Butte to memorialize the passing of his uncle. Terrible tragedy. He was so young.” She shakes her head, lamenting, so sincere even Kylo believes her for a sideways moment.

“Uh-huh,” replies the officer. He’s leaning against the window, looking in at them, eyes inscrutable behind his Aviator’s. “And this other fella with you?”

“Oh, that’s _my_ brother,” she says, easily, readily. Like it’s true. “I’m his legal guardian. He had to come with us. Terrible substance abuse problems, I’m afraid. _Pills_. It’s been a strain on the whole family, but we’re making progress. Three months sober on Monday, yes, Armie? The cat is his emotional support animal. Millicent. He named her himself. Isn’t that dear?”

The trooper lowers his glasses to study Hux, who’s visibly torn between scowling at Phasma and trying to seem as non-threatening as possible. “Is that right.”

“Ah. Yes, er. Sir,” Hux says. “I’m—not to be left alone. And so _lucky_ to have such a caring sister. And Millicent. Say hello, Millie, there's a good girl.” She blinks back at the officer, nonplussed, from her perch on his lap. 

The trooper blinks back, owlishly in the afternoon light, as if trying to manually take in everything Phasma is saying, the steady patter of her story, the three of them. “Well, then. I’ll run these. You sit tight.”

He walks back to his cruiser in that unhurried way they always seem to, every state trooper he's ever encountered aspiring to John-Wayne-like lassitude; Phasma watches him in the rearview. “They certainly take their time.” Her tone stays light, deliberately so.

There’s nothing to say. And nowhere to go. They’re on the side of a mountain. He swallows, hard. Meeting Hux’s eyes. His face's surprisingly pensive. _Worried_ , even, before he hisses at Phasma, incredulous: “ _Fucking Armie?”_

She pats his cheek. “Now, don’t overexcite yourself, love. You’re in a fragile state. Recovery takes time. Day by day. I'm so proud, truly.”

Finally, treacle-slow, the trooper ambles back to the window. “Best get that light fixed quick as you can. Can get foggy in the hills, especially at night.”

“Absolutely, yes, of course, sir. We’ll attend to that straight away.”

“Alrighty then. You folks have a good day.” To Kylo he adds: “Sorry about your uncle, son.”

They sit, motionless, as he returns to his vehicle and leaves them there, disappearing around the winding road. “How,” Kylo says, once he’s out of sight. “The fuck. Did you do that.”

“I’ve been serving coffee and pie to police for the past _four bloody years_ ,” Phasma reminds him. “You think I don’t know how to bore them into leaving me be?”

Even Hux lets loose a staccato volley of laughter at that.

“Now, if you’ll indulge me, gents,” she adds, turning the Voyager’s ignition and coaxing it back onto the highway. “I believe there’s a scenic overlook ‘round the bend and I rather fancy myself a victorious yawp into the abyss.”

 

* * *

 

Another day and a half of driving brings them into the easternmost part of the state, deep into the Rockies, the mountaintops disappearing into cloud and fog. The first time it rains, the three of them step out of the van and under the cloudburst, grateful for the feeling of it on their skin. The land has begun to green around them, dotted here and there with alpine lakes, the valleys home to farms and cattle, the road crisscrossed with passes. It’s still a quiet sort of country, only a few towns along the way, and they skirt the border with Wyoming, passing no few national parks and signs for more, Yellowstone beckoning from the other side. And Kylo wonders, not for the first time, what it might be like to really do this, not running, but traveling, just for the sake of it, just to see it all.

They’re winding along another range, _The Grand Tetons National Park_ read the sign, not far back, and chattering idly about Montana, about where they might stop, where Kylo might let Phasma and Hux and Millicent out, checking this and that town on the map. Or Kylo and Phasma are talking. Hux has grown oddly recalcitrant over the course of the day, almost taciturn, his mood difficult to parse. Then, a certain unease has begun to settle over Kylo, too, as he debates the merits of Missoula over Billings with Phasma, and it is close, very close to ending, all of it.

He should be happy. He is. No more driving, no more ducking into gas stations and praying he won’t be recognized, no more sleeping on the ground or the narrow seats, no more Millicent trying to sleep on his face in the middle of night, waking up to a mouthful of ginger fur, no more bickering with Hux about which route to take, no more of other people’s snoring or farting or sour morning breath or any of the other indignities of the road. 

They’re nearly through with it.

“You’ll need a car, if you stay out here,” he tells Phasma. “Unless you want to walk everywhere.” 

“Maybe we could go in together on one,” she says, considering. “What do you say, Armitage? You know, _legally_. Not using your method.”

“What?” Hux asks, startling. He’s been watching out the window again, idly stroking Millicent’s ears. “Oh, well. I don’t drive. Exactly.”

This shocks a laugh out of Kylo, but Hux frowns at him, expression irritable, lips thinning. “Wait, you’re kidding. You don't know how to drive?”

“Of course, I know how a car _operates_ , obviously. But I don’t have a license. Haven’t done a course or—whatever it is you do.”

An incredulous silence descends over the Voyager, no one else speaking, the tires' turning suddenly loud.

“That’s— _ridiculous,_ ” Phasma gasps, breaking it. Bursts out laughing. “Oh, surely not. You must be taking the piss. You’re _not_ a car thief who can’t _drive_.”

Hux’s frown deepens into a scowl. A bright flush, rivaling his hair, stains his cheeks and ears, creeps down his neck. And no, then, he’s not joking. Can’t be. “It’s not like I was going ‘round jimmying door handles and hot-wiring Mazdas. It was an operation. I ran it. We had drivers.”

“Still,” Kylo says. And he can’t keep from snickering himself. “The irony. Hux. What the fuck. That’s incredible.”

“It’s not _that_ funny,” Hux protests. Blushing harder.

“It is absolutely that funny,” Phasma says, her voice sticky with tears. “I was wondering why you never offered to take a turn at the wheel. Or demanded, for that matter. You seemed like the type.”

“I’ve been reading the map for you dullards for—“

“Without being asked,” Kylo points out. “I didn’t realize it was because that’s _all_ you could do.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“You poor sod, no wonder you didn’t complain about the ride out of town. Kylo accidentally kidnapping you was an incredible stroke of luck, wasn’t it? Best thing that ever happened to you. Oh, poor Armie.”

“Right,” Hux says, sitting up straight. Millie leaps off his lap with a chirp of protest _._ “That’s it. Both of you can go rot. Let me out.”

“Come on, Hux, we were only kidding,” Kylo cajoles him, still teasing. “Just because you can’t— _contribute_ that way—“

“I mean it: pull over,” Hux snaps. “Now.”

“What? Really?” he asks, startled. “Why?”

“You’re not serious,” Phasma says.

He glares at them both. “I assure you, I am _quite_ serious. If I have to spend another second in this fucking trash bucket with you two, I’m going to commit a murder. Now pull _over_ , Kylo, or I’m going to jump out.” He fusses with the door, as if to illustrate. Cracks the door open, letting in a rush of air.

“Okay, okay, _easy_ , shit, don’t _do_ that,” Kylo says, reaching over to stop him and braking gently at the same time. They’re on another mountain road in an endless succession of mountain roads, not another car in sight. He guides the Voyager onto the side of the byway, hugging the guardrail; gravel crunches under the tires.

Hux is out of the van the moment it comes to a stop. He cranes his neck this way and that before crossing the empty pavement to the other side, stomping as he goes, _walking_ north, towards Montana.

Kylo exchanges a long look with Phasma in the rearview. “Well, what are you waiting for?” She leans up to smack his arm. “Follow him.”

He eases the van back onto the road, moving at a crawl, but it’s still easy enough to catch up with Hux, who’s resolutely plodding on, opposite them, along the white edge line. Or trying. His sandals aren’t exactly made for hiking, and he’s already limping slightly, maybe from the impact, maybe from the way his right foot keeps twisting. Snatches of his tirade, ongoing, continuous, float over the pavement. “Like you would have even gotten this far without me, who fixed the fucking van, who’s stayed up talking to you, ungrateful fucks—“

 

 

“Hux,” Kylo calls to him, rolling down the window. “Hux, come on. We were only joking. Get back in the van.”

He raises his hand over his head and shows Kylo two fingers. Then, to emphasize the point, make his meaning clear, gives him his middle finger, too, and keeps walking.

“Hux, where are you even going to go? There’s nothing out here.”

He sticks out his thumb, watching up the slope, stubborn. “You talk in your sleep, you know!” he calls over his shoulder. Or something like that. “You both do. And your feet smell. You’re terrible travel companions!”

“Armitage,” Phasma tries. Tone authoritative. “Enough of this. Get back in the van this instant. You’re making a spectacle.”

He only shakes his head, stubborn. 

“C’mon, Hux, it’s going to rain again,” Kylo tells him. “Come back inside. We’re sorry, okay?”

“Entitled— _asshole—_ and—bloody—virago.” He’s navigating his way carefully along the road now, avoiding a lough of shattered glass. “Hope you drive into a fucking gorge— _and who got us un-lost?”_ he shouts over his shoulder.

“What about Millicent, Armitage?” Phasma calls. Wheedling now. “Surely, you’re not going to abandon her.” 

He slows, shoulders drooping, then picks up speed again. Resolute. “I’m quite certain she’ll be fine without me. You must think so, too, if I’m apparently of so little _use_.”

They stare at each other in shock.

“Is he—?”

“Did we?” 

“I do believe,” Phasma posits. ”We may have actually hurt Armitage’s feelings.”

“Well, fuck.”

“I know, I know. Who would have thought it possible?”

“Okay, but what do we do about it?” Kylo asks. “Unless one of us wrestles him back into the van.”

“Of the two of us, you have significantly more experience with that. It’s not like he’s terribly heavy, skinny old thing. But—you’d rather not? We could just wait for him to get tired,” she suggests. “He’s not going to get far at all on that ankle. I think he’s sprained it.”

He shakes his head, dismissing this, then leans out the window again. He doesn’t want to drag Hux back to the Voyager, doesn’t want to leave him out there either. Which leaves: “Hey, Hux? You’re right,” he says. “We would never have made it this far without you. We appreciate it. _I_ appreciate it. You.” He swallows before adding, “You’re—important to us. And. We need you. All right?” 

Hux stops walking, finally, arms hugged against his chest over the gray sweater, which has drooped to the side again. He looks down the road and up at the mountain again. Seems to sigh, shoulders heaving. Kylo and Phasma wait, not daring to speak again, as he picks his way back across the byway. Climbs into the back of the van, the rearmost bench, as far from either of them as he can get, but he's here. Folds his arms, his expression carefully blank. “Well, go on, drive then, since you’re so brilliant at it,” he says. 

 

* * *

 

Kylo and Phasma leave him be for the rest of the day and most of the next, doing so without conferring, wordless understanding passing between them. Millie keeps him company in the back seat, where he reclines with his legs propped up, sandals shed, as though this is by personal preference and not necessity. Kylo risks offering him a cold soda can from the next rest stop; Hux accepts it without thanks beyond a quiet grunt, but does, he notes, press it against his swollen ankle. At one point, he steals the novel Kylo hasn’t finished and starts it, occasionally reading passages aloud as his mood clears. 

They’re nearly to the Montana border when Kylo takes an unplanned exit, catching sight of a promising sign. Maybe, he thinks, a way to help. Phasma frowns at him from her new spot in the passenger seat. “It’s too early to stop,” she points out. “And there’s nothing here, only a—“

He shoots her a pleading glance, and she falls silent.

“What’s this then?” Hux asks, yawning, finally looking up when the Voyager shudders to a stop on the narrow, packed-earth access road. There’s no one else in sight. Pines, thick green, surround the van, but water glimmers beyond them, the sunlight striking it, crystalline. ‘Where are we?”

“It’s, uh.” Kylo coughs. Feels somewhat stupid adding: “It’s a lake.”

Recognitions crest over Hux’s features: confusion, then comprehension, and lastly something else, something almost tender. Possibly— _touched_. “Oh,” is all he says. "You remembered."

The three of them walk down to the water over a soft carpet of pine needles, loam. A sandy border edges the water, not quite a beach, only two or three feet deep. Still, enough to stand on, to look out over the blue for a long interval. Finally, Hux says, “Phas?”

“Here you are, darling.” She smiles, retrieving the watch bearing the name _Brendol Hux_ from her pocket. “Give it a good lob.”

Hux turns the watch over in his hands, studying it, the glinting metal, the afternoon glow reflecting off its face. “Well,” he says, before winding up. “Good fucking riddance.” He heaves it through the air, getting decent distance before the watch drops into the water with a _plonk_. 

They don’t move on right away, sit on the shore and admire the sun sinking over the hills, the sky blushing then darkening around them, the stars gleaming back from the calm surface of the lake. Probably they should keep going, find a better place to spend the night, but it’s surprisingly difficult to pull away from this place, from the clear, cool air, the rustle of the trees. A nightbird calls over the water. Kylo sighs out an exhale, feeling something leave him, and it’s been like that these past few nights, a gradual unburdening, everything he doesn’t need slowly shed along the way. He can’t explain it, the way his chest has begun to loosen, the way he feels like he can _breathe_ suddenly, like he hasn’t been able to for years.

“It’s my grandfather’s ranch,” he says, unprompted, breaking the quiet. Not caring anymore to keep it a secret. “That’s where I’m going.”

Hux tenses next to him. Still pensive from earlier. Still unsettled. Kylo wants to put a hand on his arm, to say _it’s okay, really_ , how he’s done for him. Banish, if he can, whatever doubt or anxiety’s dogging him, to let him know he understands. Or he thinks he does. Recognizes it, how that feels. “Why—why are you telling us that?”

Kylo shrugs. “Why not? You could’ve sold me out a dozen times by now if you’d wanted.”

“But that’s not.“ Hux shakes his head, disbelieving, staring at him, wide-eyed. “That’s different. You didn’t have a choice before. We hardly gave you one.”

“Well, I’m choosing now,” he says. Able to get that out, least, all the other things he can’t voice yet still stymied. What it's meant to him, what _they’ve_ meant to him. How he—He turns his head, unable to meeting Hux's eyes, certain he’ll give away more than he intends. On his other side, Phasma’s also watching him, expression neutral, considering.“In fact, I’d. I’d like it—if you want anyway—if you came with me. I mean, I don’t know what state the place is in, and I don’t know what will happen, but if—“

“Okay,” Phasma agrees, sparing him, faster than he thought she would, maybe taking pity. “I don’t know a bloody thing about Montana. Or ranches. But yes, I’m game, as they say. Let’s.”

He returns her smile, grateful.

There’s another lull, insects thrumming around them, the night nosier out here in the trees, before they both turn to look at Hux. He gapes at them. Almost panicked. “But there are logistics. And you don’t even know if—of _course,_ you don’t. And what are we going to do about— _anything_ , really. And, and,” he stammers, voice rising. Eyes shining. Something fragile about that, his face. He gestures wildly at the dark, the stars.

Neither of them speaks; they only wait, eyebrows raised, as if to ask, _Well?_

“Oh, fuck it,” he says finally. “Fine, yes, all right. I’m in, too. Let’s go to Kylo’s grandfather’s ranch in Montana, about which we know nothing, with no plan and no resources. It’ll hardly be the oddest thing I’ve done this week.”

After another beat, he adds: “ _If_ Millicent is welcome, too, of course.”

Kylo chances reaching down and taking Hux’s hand, feeling him shiver. His fingers are chilly. He chafes them gently between his own. “Of course, she is.”

 

* * *

 

The mood in the Voyager changes after that, his own gloom lifting, Hux’s surliness also passing as they cross from Idaho into Montana. More significant: they pass out of the mountains, at last, coming over the summit of a hill to find a green, rolling countryside waiting for them. None of them can resist the opportunity to strip off their shoes, walk around in the soft blades, grateful to feel it under their feet. Millie winds between their legs, equally pleased at this new development. 

Since the night at the lake, they’ve been talking, constantly, day and night, about what to do when they reach their destination, what they’ll need, how Hux and Phasma might find work, what Kylo can do, what repairs might be needed, what supplies. Hux has retrieved one of Han’s old notebooks out of the glove compartment, is using the remaining pages to take notes, jot down ideas, and has been quizzing Kylo incessantly about what he remembers about the place— _very little—_ whether he knows if there’s been a caretaker since Anakin’s death— _no idea_ —why his grandfather chose that plot of land— _to get away_. Phasma, no less enthusiastic, has been trying to recall her field training, is already planning for the winter.

They’re a day or two out when she parks the van on a gently sloping hillside and sighs. “I don’t think I’ll be sick of that view for a long while.” She climbs out of the van to snap more pictures. Has reloaded the Polaroid once already, storing a thick pile of photographs in one of the books she favors. 

Hux and Kylo join her out in the grass, barefoot, stretching their legs, walking close. Not quite touching. Kylo hasn’t dared since the other night, the memory of Hux's hand under his lingering, and less has he tried to talk to him about— He’s unusually at a loss for what to do next. If they were at a bar in the Mission, he’d know what to do, to say, how to slip in next to him, showing off his muscle, his money, his best advantages, but here in his travel-worn jeans and sneakers in the middle of nowhere, all of his secrets long since revealed, he has no notion. Can only stare at Hux as he arches his back, popping his vertebrae, his sweater riding up and showing pale skin, dusted with light hair, freckles, and his fists flung towards the sky. He wanders down the hill a ways, Millie on his heels, her tail hooking into a question mark.

Phasma comes to stand beside Kylo, camera stowed. Her purse draped over her shoulder.

“Where are you going?” he asks, surprised.

She gestures down the hill at a number of small, twinkling lights. “ _That_ ,” she explains. “Is a town.”

“So?”

“So.” Phasma smiles. Content, easy. “Towns have pubs. Bars. And bars have pints. I would _badly_ like a cold pint.”

“You’re going to walk there?”

“Indeed I am. I fancy one of those, too. It’ll be nice to get the blood flowing. I fear I’m going to fuse with that van of yours otherwise.”

He frowns. “Be careful. Places like this, people can be suspicious of outsiders.”

Her expression in response might best be described as amused, as if to say both _yes, I know_ and _you honestly think anyone here is more frightening than I am?_

And. Fair.

“I don’t expect I’ll be back for hours,” she tells him. Pointed. “Maybe I’ll find somewhere to stay overnight. Would love a bed.”

Kylo stares at her, not understanding.

“I trust you’ll figure it out.” She laughs, pats his arm. “Have a good night, Kylo. Be brave.”

He stands there for a moment, bemused, watching her go, before turning back.

Hux is stretched out in the grass, propped up on his elbows, overlooking the valley. “Look at that sky,” he says, admiring. Smiling at Kylo.

He can’t think of anything insightful to say, so he just nods. Trying not to stare. “Hungry?” he asks.

“I suppose,” he acknowledges. Accepts his hand up. They walk back towards the Voyager, set about getting settled for the evening, feeding Millicent, putting together the most appealing dinner they can, talking intermittently. Sitting together on Kylo’s sleeping bag after as night comes on. 

“I can’t believe we’re nearly through sleeping in your father’s van. It’ll be nice to have an actual roof over our heads,” Hux says.

And it doesn’t mean anything, _we_ and _our_ , but. 

“Hm? Yeah. Hopefully, anyway. I mean, we’ll see.”

“Of _course_ , you inherited acres of property and a house and god knows what else and let it fall apart without a second thought,” Hux grumbles, although it lacks the bite it would have had days ago. Mostly, he sounds faintly exasperated. “Your grandfather must have liked you, at least, to leave you all that.”

“I don’t remember him very well,” Kylo admits. “He led sort of an odd life. My grandmother died when my mom and her brother were only a few days old. I think it—it really fucked him up. Losing her like that. She was the love of his life. He became a pretty difficult person after that. Cold.” 

Hux pauses, considering this. Thoughtful, the way he is. He drops down to his elbows, reclining again, looking out over the valley, the town standing brighter below them. Moonlight bluing his skin, the hillside, the Voyager. “I should think that would be devastating, becoming a single parent and a widower in so brief a time. Probably anyone would become cold in the wake of that sort of tragedy.”

“Yeah.” He doesn’t talk about Anakin to many people. It feels strange, foreign, even to say his name. “I don’t think my mom ever got over it, though. Never really forgave him. For how things were. Uncle Luke’s the one who reached out, before he died. He took me to see him a few times. But it was always sort of taboo. Bringing him up.” In fact, Snoke had talked about his grandfather more than any of his family had, called him a legend and a great man. Something appealing about that. More so when he said he saw him in Kylo. 

It hadn’t been a lie, exactly, although he no longer knows what he meant. Maybe only that he was frail in the same way. 

Hux’s fingers curl around his wrist, gentle, drawing him back, that way he does. His face sympathetic, eyes pale green in the twilight. “You don’t have to talk about it, if you’d rather not,” he says. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

 _When has that ever stopped you_ , Kylo could say, but he can hear the sincerity in it, the apology. He shrugs. “It’s all right. I—don’t mind.” _Telling you._ He doesn’t. It’s easy, has been, even when Hux was pushing all his buttons.

“Still, what an idea, the love of one’s life. I don’t think anyone even talks that way anymore.” He hasn’t let go of Kylo yet. Is stroking his arm gently, the back of his hand. Is looking out over the grass again, leaning back. "Or believes it's possible. One person."

“I used to, I think,” he admits. “When I was younger. But after a while you—” He shrugs. “I don’t know, settle for other things.”

Hux smiles, wistful, before his expression sharpens. “Oh, poor Kylo. I’m sure your penthouse got _terribly_ lonely. Tell me it wasn’t a revolving door of one-night stands.”

“Hey.” He nudges him gently with his elbow, protesting. Difficult to ignore how close he is, still touching him, not quite holding his hand. “Some of those flings lasted a whole three months.” A few longer, but they fell apart as easily. Simply. He'd made sure of it.

“Extraordinary.” He snorts. “Did you even have to ask or did they independently form an orderly queue?”

“Very funny.” 

“Oh, I’m quite serious. I doubt you’d even know how to—“

It’s not a deep kiss, or a close embrace, but Kylo does cup his chin, tilting his face, the angle good, his lips soft under his. Hux goes still with surprise at first, only reciprocating at the end of it, his mouth chasing Kylo’s as he moves away.

He frowns after, studying him.

_Shit._

“Sorry,” Kylo breathes. “I shouldn’t have. I just. I mean. I—”

Hux grabs him, hands closing around his ears as he pulls him in, kissing him soundly, licking into his mouth, murmuring approval when Kylo wraps both arms around him, one around his waist, the other his back, drawing him flush against him, on top of him. “Right,” he breathes when they finally part. Face flushed in the twilight. “Ah. You were saying.”

“I like you,” Kylo tells him. Blunt. Still holding him. Their noses only a few inches apart. Close enough to see his eyes widen and his pupils dilate.

He smiles down at him, immediate, pleased. May even be speechless for a change, and isn’t that something. “Yeah?”

He nods, then laughs. Lightheaded. “Well, you’re sort of a bastard. And you’ve given me more shit in the last week than most people have in my entire life. You've called me an irresponsible idiot in about eighty different ways, and I’m pretty sure you mean it, too, but I also feel like you understand me when almost no one does, and I feel _okay_ around you somehow—and I want to touch you all the time lately and, and—“

Hux takes pity on him, dragging his thumb over his lower lip, quieting him. “Okay, okay. Hush now. Enough talking.” He leans down for another kiss. Bites at his mouth, threads his fingers through his hair, arches against his chest, the reality of him warm, lithe, on top of him. He mumbles, _You can touch me as much as you like_ against his lips. Groans when Kylo slides one hand lower, cupping his ass, squeezing. _Yes, like that, that’s good, Kylo, very good._ And it goes straight to his cock, Hux saying his name like that, low and throaty, almost a purr. He moans quietly.

It’s just that at first, just Hux’s hands roaming over his chest, down his sides, sliding up his arms, encouraging him to do the same, shivering when he slips his fingers under that shapeless gray sweater, tracing the sharp lines of his hip, the valley of his spine, his jutting shoulder blades, sinking into the fluff of his hair. Hux squirms against him, whining, when Kylo scratches at his scalp. Delighted, he does it again. Liking especially the way he clings to him. And he couldn’t have imagined that, Hux clinging to anyone, how he goes pliant in his arms. Can’t think, either, the last time he touched anyone like this, seeking, unhurried, wanting to learn them this way, thoroughly, find every hidden tender spot.

Hux, for his part, returns the favor and more, identifying, seemingly without effort, the way Kylo keens when someone tugs lightly on his hair, the sensitive point at the hinge of his jaw, so susceptible to licking, how teeth closing around his earlobe makes him quiver and his cock twitch. “Lovely, lovely,” he murmurs, doing that last again, rocking against him now. “I did wonder. What you’d be like.”

“When?” Kylo says against his neck. Nipping at it, reddening the skin. “When did you wonder that?”

“Oh, ha.” Hux noses at his hair. “In what sense? Because that first day—I would have—mm, when you were furious. And defeated. Your _face_. I loved it. I would have brought you up to one of those gaudy rooms at the Flamingo and let you, _ah._ Take it out on me. If I’d had time, at least.“

He growls a little, biting him harder, making him gasp, and maybe, yes, if he hadn’t been in a hurry, too. But that was before. And it seems—empty, in retrospect. “Not like that anymore, though,” he says. Not asking. Hoping he doesn’t need to ask. Feeling it’s true. And yet needing to hear—

He kisses his temple, quick. “No, not like that anymore,” he admits. Voice soft. He trembles.

Kylo laps at the mark he’s made, soothing the raised skin. Nuzzles under his chin. “And now?”

Hux pulls back to study him, holding his face, meeting his eyes. His own gray in the twilight. Solemn. “You’re one of the most thoughtless people I’ve ever encountered. You’re impulsive. Difficult. Foul-tempered. Melodramatic to a fault. A bloody disaster in a crisis. And infuriating, certainly.” He kisses him softly, gentling this. “But also unusually generous, in your way. Idealistic. More earnest than anyone I’ve met, whether you want to be or not. Almost beautifully genuine, in fact. And I—I think I feel okay with you, too. And I never do. With anyone.” He smiles, wry.

“Yeah?” Kylo can’t keep from smiling back.

“Yes, well, don’t get too excited,” Hux snorts. “I’ve just been hauled across the bloody desert, and you _are_ the only man I’ve seen in eight days who doesn’t use a CB call sign and subsist primarily on beef jerky. Could be my judgment is severely impaired. Could be off canned goods.”

Kylo kisses him, chastising him, catching his lower lip between his teeth, as he flips them, rolling Hux gently onto his back, straddling him.

He looks up at him, eyes dark, lips parted. Breathless. “You are something, aren’t you?” he asks, wondering. And Kylo flushes, ducks his head before Hux curls his arms around his neck, draws him down again. Another kiss. “Going to need a few things, I expect.”

He blinks, startled. He hadn’t thought—hadn't assumed, although he can feel it when Hux grinds up against him, insistent, and drags his teeth over his bottom lip. He groans, then whines, missing the contact when Hux shoves him off.

“Go on with you, then.” He lies back, limbs spread, as though to soak up the moonlight; it silvers his skin, his eyes, even his vivid hair. “Hurry back. I’ll be right here.”

Kylo stumbles towards the Voyager, leaning in to retrieve the box _, the box_ , and he’s trying not to think too much about its original purpose, thinking instead about Hux, how warm he is, how he pressed against him before. How he smiled. Moonlight.  _And I—I think I feel okay with you, too. And I never do._  

Millicent watches him, whiskers twitching as he retrieves the box, reaches to search it. Finding, on the top, a plastic convenience store bag and inside: two boxes of condoms, a small bottle of lube, and a receipt with a note scrawled on the back.

 _Have fun and be safe, idiots, and_ _do not shag in the van_. _I will murder you both and hide your bodies. No one will ever find you. Love, Phas_.

He coughs a laugh and shakes his head before going back to Hux. He’s undone the sleeping bag, laying it flat, and shed his sweater. Is lying there, chest bare, his expression—almost apprehensive. Brow furrowed. 

And that’s no good.

Kylo sinks down next to him, curling over him and kissing him thoroughly, pleased at the way his fingers go to his hair, buried in it. Lets his own hands wander over Hux’s chest, his belly. Dips his thumbs under the waistband of his jeans, stroking. Warming him. He lets him go only to show him the receipt, Phasma’s jagged handwriting, vaguely threatening all on its own. Hux laughs, the sound of it lighter, easier, than he’s yet heard it. Nothing mocking or cruel or reluctant about it. Odd that another thrill of arousal goes through him at that. “That woman,” he says, shaking his head. “I was thinking—I’d like to anyway. Under the stars. I mean.”

He swallows, hard. Want hitting him squarely in the gut.

Hux grins. “Oh, you like that, hm? Is that what you want, too, Kylo? Out here?”

Kylo nods, not sure he can speak, reaching for him, but Hux puts a hand up, cradling his jaw, stopping him, forcing him to meet his gaze.

“Mm. Wait. Tell me, first. Tell me what you want.”

“You,” he says, immediate, unthinking. Meaning it. That admission tugged from him, too hard, like some essential thread unspooling. Like it could unravel him. Feeling more exposed for that than for the fact they’re here, wrapped up in each other under the open sky. And it must show in his eyes, also too clear; he hides his face.

“Hey, none of that,” Hux says. He pulls him down on top of him, urging him close again. “I’m right here.” Breath humid on his ear. Hand curled around his nape, stroking. Calming. When he feels Kylo ease in his arms, he hooks a leg around him. Rocks easy, languid against him. “I want to see you,” he breathes.

Kylo obliges him, peeling off his shirt. May be more gratified at the way he bites his lip, looking at him, than he has any other reaction to his body. Hux turns his attention to his chest, tracing it, drawing his nails over his skin, down his abdomen, up his back. Plucks at one nipple, grins again when this elicits a moan, a shudder. Dips his head to lick it, take it between his teeth. Heat washes through Kylo, immediate, almost startling, the feeling of it going straight to his cock. “ _Fuck_ ,” he gasps. Grinds down against Hux, liking the way he writhes up against him, chasing the friction, pressure. Feeling him, being felt.

“Fuck, you’re so—” He tries to explain. Can’t. He kisses the side of his face instead. One sideburn. The bridge of his nose.

“You, too,” Hux says. Seeming to understand. He nips at his ear again. “Although, I wouldn’t mind— _ah—_ more?”

He takes the hint. Reaches between them to thumb open the button on Hux’s jeans, draw down his zipper. Cups Hux’s cock, rubbing him through his shorts. Pleased at the way he thrusts into the touch, whimpering, a little desperate already. He shivers when Hux undoes his fly, deftly, and slips a hand in to stroke him, making another throaty noise as he does. The two of them figuring each other out, teasing, touching. Murmuring, _oh, like this? Yes,_ _there, yes, that’s good._ And finally, _oh, oh, please, more_. _Can we—? Yes, yes._

They struggle out of the rest of their clothing, and Kylo sits back, tears open a condom, rolling it on while Hux drizzles a generous amount of lube over his own fingers. His mouth, slightly swollen, red from kissing, slackens as he works them in. He doesn’t take his time, hurrying now, his legs splayed, cock heavy on his belly. His other hand, curled around Kylo’s hip, shakes faintly as he opens himself. Kylo has to force himself to look away from this—wanting to watch, to see those long, thin fingers disappear into him, stretching him—to slick his cock. Has only just managed to when Hux is dragging him back and down on top of him, insistent. His knees hug Kylo’s sides. He leans up, licks at his lips, bumps his nose with his own, before he says, voice already rough: “Go ahead. I’m ready.” 

He lines himself up, pausing as he does, tilting Hux’s forehead against his own, giving them both a moment before he pushes in, easing, slow. Slower than he ever does this. Hux sighs as he does, that initial resistance giving way as he exhales, taking him, gradual, and it’s too tempting: the slight line of tension between his brows. He kisses it, wanting to soothe it. The two of them breathing through this, this first thrust, almost overwhelmed. Kylo aware of Hux's every twitch around him, contracting, clutching at him. 

They both moan when he bottoms out. 

And he should feel exposed, the night sky brilliant behind him, the stars that they’ve followed night after night gleaming down on them, but it feels _fitting_ , _right,_ in a way, and he is most immediately concerned with Hux, how tight he is, yes, how hot around him, but also the soft gasps and groans and whimpers Kylo chases out of him every time he sinks into him. The trembling in his thighs. The taste of sweat at the hollow of his throat. The way he shivers slightly as they go on, arms wrapped around him, bringing him close. His startled _ah_  when Kylo curls his hands behind his knees, pushing them up, thrusting into him, harder, faster, his quiet wail at the quicker pace. How his nails rake over his skin, scrabbling. _Oh, yes, there, please, fuck, yes._ Kylo feels the words, buzzing against his lips, more than he hears them.

“Want to see you,” he tells Hux, breathless, rocking into him. “Will you touch yourself? Come while I’m in you? Let me see?”

“Yes, _yes._ ”

 _Let me see_ , because Kylo wants to know: how his expression opens, his mouth dropping open, eyelashes fluttering, the blush darkening on his cheeks, his neck, his chest. The plaintive way he says his name, begging—and has anyone said his name like that before? _Unguarded, wanting_ in a way that makes his chest ache. The starlight, moonlight softening all of it, both of them. It’s that, as much as the way Hux clutches around him, heat and pressure, how his legs close, _hard_ , around his waist, as much the way he keeps saying, _Kylo, Kylo_ , as much the way he tastes right now, arching up to kiss him as he gives over to it. All of it, and he’s almost unaware of it at first, his own release catching him by surprise. He falls apart that way, in Hux’s arms, the surrender welcome, desired.

 

* * *

 

They take their time about it, separating, getting cleaned up, although the cold chases them back into the Voyager eventually, sweat drying with an uncomfortable chill on their skin. They pull on other clothes, Kylo lending Hux a pair of sweats, a shirt, both of which hang off him, but it’s—different from before. It strikes him how much he wants that, immediately, often, always: Hux in his clothes, crawling out of bed in the morning, drowsy, grabbing whatever’s closest.

Afterward, he lowers the back seat, remembering from those old camping trips that it converts to a bed of sorts, room enough for both of them. Pleased when Hux nestles against him under the sleeping bag, arm draped over his waist, one leg slipped between both of his, his head tucked under his chin, the mild smell of his hair in his nose. Unexpected. Kylo doesn’t protest when Millie settles next to them, rumbling softly, her eyes flashing in the dark.

“It’s strange,” Hux murmurs, as they’re lying there together, not yet asleep, not quite awake. His breathing deep, gentle. “There’s something so familiar about you.”

“Familiar?” Kylo asks. Drowsy, too. Kissing haphazardly at his forehead, his fringe

“Hm. Like I know you. And have. Can’t explain it.” He shakes his head. His nose cold against Kylo’s throat. “Bothered me, earlier. Felt. Like a liability somehow.”

“Not anymore?”

“Not anymore.” He yawns, then huffs. “Well. Mostly.”

Sleep overtakes him after that, whatever else either of them might say lost. And he’s aware, distantly, coming out of fragmented dreams, of the way the light changes, the sky brightening outside the van, the sun rising above the hills, dawn catching on the dewy grass. On another day of these last several, he would sit up, stretch, struggle into full wakefulness. Time to go, to move on. But today there’s that solid warmth in his arms, the slide of Hux’s skin under his own, how he grumbles, wordlessly complaining, and burrows closer when Kylo tries to shift back to look at him. Millie blinks at him over his shoulder, paws tucked under her, tail swishing over the nylon.

So he doesn’t move, except to gather Hux against him. Lets himself drift again. Startled out of sleep only when a familiar voice declares, “Smile, lads.” Followed by the sound of the Polaroid spitting out a photo. “Oh, but you _are_  sweet.”

“Phasma. I’m burning that,” Hux mutters against Kylo’s skin. “This afternoon, perhaps. Or tomorrow. Next week. Eventually. But do fuck off. I'm sleeping.”

“Have at, the other half dozen will do me fine,” she says, unbothered. “About time to get moving, though. We’re nearly there, yeah? Up you get.” She tugs the sleeping bag askew, assaulting them both with cold air.

“You’re a _monster,_ ” Hux hisses, curling up pillbug tight, sheltering halfway under Kylo now.

“What tosh. I could do much worse with a bucket of ice water. My drill sergeant certainly did. Now come on. I’ve found us another truck stop.”

“Oh, joy.”

“Might be the last one, you know.”

Finally they do coax Hux out into the morning, with promises of fresh coffee and a hot shower, the first any of them has had in days. The truck stop, the largest they’ve seen since that first morning, is only a few miles down the highway. They might have ended up there if they hadn’t stopped where they did the previous night.

Thinking of that hill, Hux spread out in the twilight under him, Kylo is glad they did. More than.

They cross the plaza together, venturing deeper into the facilities than they have. An elaborate setup: showers, hotels, restaurants, convenience stores. Anything you could need along the way.

The shower cubicles—clean, enclosed, private—are pay by the hour. All the more luxurious for that, and he doesn’t resist when Hux drags him into the room with him and pushes him under the steaming spray. They scrub each other clean, really thoroughly clean, twice, suds running down both of them, carrying away the sweat and staleness of the road. Both hard by the time they're done. Hux goes very pink in the heat, he learns, rosy all over; his eyes lighten to spring green. Kylo discovers, too, that he’ll moan as loudly when he washes his hair for him, digging out flecks of grit and sand, as when he eats him out after. 

Or, it’s a close second at least, Kylo thinks, tasting him, licking into him, pushing his tongue past that ring of muscle, fucking him with it, feeling Hux writhe above him, his fingers splayed on the tiles, his voice cracking from the sensation. His skin slick under Kylo’s hands.

He’d very much like to do this until he comes, see how long it takes.

He settles for having him against the wall instead, his legs spread wide, Kylo holding him around the middle, supporting him when his knees start to quiver. He doesn’t last long that way, not with the hot water, the noises Hux’s making, his own skin, sensitive, almost tender from being scoured clean. He takes Hux’s cock in his mouth after, drawing his hands to his hair, encouraging him to pull as hard as he likes, to fuck his throat. Soaking up how he growls praise, too, hoarse from the night before, savoring the feel of him on his tongue. Wishes, to his own surprise, that they hadn’t bothered with the condom, that he could have swallowed. Wondering how Hux might have looked, sounded if he’d done that.

It is, nonetheless, one of the best mornings he can remember having. It barely gives him pause when a young woman is staring at him, pensive, as they walk back to the Voyager. 

 

* * *

 

Kylo drives. The van chugs steadily onward, deeper in the green center of the state, away from the towns that skirt along the bottom, away from the mountains. Anakin had been a recluse in those last years, had wanted to be as far from people as possible. That last drive up here with Han, they’d gotten lost twice. But he has a sense for where to go now, something leading him on, forward, a knowledge of _direction_ he doesn’t think he’s ever felt in his life. Hux catches his eye and smiles, tentative, nearly _shy_ , before he affects seriousness again and returns his attention to the map. “You want Rte. 200, according to this. A few miles yet before the turn.” He doesn’t protest when Kylo reaches over and snags his hand, interlacing their fingers over the center console.

“Are we there yet?” he asks. Teasing.

They nearly are.

They’re less than twenty miles from the truck stop when he sees the first flash of color behind them, those distinct reds and blues. With them: the telltale sounds of sirens. He waits, hoping, maybe that it’s an ambulance or a fire truck, knowing, all the same, in his gut that it isn’t. That this is it. He remembers the woman, quite clearly, all at once. Her expression. How she’d been concentrating on _him_ , not the three of them, not how he’d been standing with Hux, close, not Phasma, unusual as the two of them put together. But him. His features. _His_ face.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Phasma says, checking behind them. “Better speed up, Kylo.”

“Yes,” Hux agrees. He reaches out to put a steadying hand on Kylo’s shoulder, anticipating his anxiety. He’s looking at him like he did last night and this morning, tender in a way that makes Kylo’s stomach flip. He’s certain no one’s ever looked at him like this, like he’s someone worthwhile, just for who he is, not for what he has or might do for them. _I want to see you._ The impact of that resounds in his chest, his sternum. “Don’t worry. We can lose them down one of these side roads. Lots of curves out here. And more trees.”

And he could try, he could coax more speed out of the Voyager and take a hairpin turn and try to outrun what’s behind them, as he has been, to escape the reckoning that his parents assured him was unavoidable. 

He thinks of these last several days with Phasma and Hux, thinks of confessions under starry skies and the feeling of Hux’s skin under his hands. Laughter in the dark. 

The lights are approaching fast, screaming up behind them, and he only has a few minutes to decide what to do.

It had seemed so clear in California that anything was worth not getting caught. Giving up his city, his apartment, his family, his friends, fair-weather as they were—the choice simple. His freedom was worth more than all of it. The unfairness of it, too, of having to answer for Snoke, when he was only a small piece in a much grander plan, one he still doesn’t fully know or understand. It was easy enough to let the whole world burn, then, so long as he didn’t end up in handcuffs, facing down a government committee. He can’t find it, that same inclination. He looks at Hux in the passenger seat, Phasma behind him. Green eyes and blue. Both of them urging on him on. Willing to go along. When no one has been before.

“Kylo,” Hux is saying. “What are you doing? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” Kylo decides as he hits the brakes and eases the Voyager onto the shoulder. When he’s put it in park and killed the engine, he leans over to kiss Hux, gentle, tasting coffee and sugar on his lips. _There’s something so familiar about you._ He strokes his cheek, trying to ease some of the worry from his face. “Nothing’s the matter. I’m okay.”

Outside, there are the sounds of doors closing. Over the speaker: _“Ben Solo, please exit the vehicle.”_

Kylo turns to Phasma. Reaches into his pocket, digging out the small, stamped oval of metal. “Here. You said you’d be wanting this back.”

She shakes her head. “You hang onto it, mate.” Her eyes surprisingly wet. 

“Okay,” he says. “Right. Thanks.” Curls his hand around it. “Hey, uh, look after him, all right?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Hux demands. Although his expression says he knows, too. “Look _after_ me? What the fuck does that mean? I can look after myself perfectly fine, thank you. _Kylo_ —what are you doing?”

He doesn’t answer, only opens the door.

“Hi,” he says, congenially, as he steps out of the Voyager, hands raised. Letting his voice carry over the road. The green hills around them. “I’m Kylo. I think you probably know me as Ben Solo? I’m giving myself up. The people in the van there, they don’t have anything to do with this. They’re only—I met them along the way. They don’t know who I am. They’re not responsible.”

For a moment, he waits, watching them take this in, the lot of them crouched behind their doors, some with guns drawn. As though he’s some dangerous fugitive. As though he can do anything but stand here with his hands up, hoping for the best. It’s tempting to laugh, but he schools his face. Or tries.

Static crackles over more than one radio. “Okay,” one of the officers says, approaching Kylo. “Okay, good, so we won’t have any trouble from you, will we? Now over by the van and hands behind your back, please, son.”

He has never, he thinks as his cheek touches the hood of the Voyager, the metal warm under his skin, felt more like his father.

“No trouble at all,” Kylo promises. Accepts the constriction of plastic zip ties on his wrists and allows himself to be guided to the side of the highway, where he’s instructed to sit. In his peripheral vision, he sees more police escorting Phasma and Hux from the Voyager. Gently, not forcing them. Phasma is cradling Millicent in her arms and answering their questions. She gestures at Kylo a few times, then at the van and down the road, and is also showing them identification. Hux is staring at him, his eyes bright and hard, his jaw set, lips thin.

“Ben Solo, you’re under arrest,” the man behind him is saying. “You have the right—“

“His name is _Kylo_ , you khaki-addled buffoon,” Hux corrects acidly, and loudly. He’s pushing away from the officers trying to question him and Phasma. One of them tries to restrain him, but he pulls loose, struggling towards Kylo. “A bunch of bloody plonkers, the lot of you—“

“ _Armitage_.” Behind him, Phasma’s contriving to appear especially harmless, doing her best to hold up her hands peacefully while also keeping hold of Millie. “Please forgive him,” she says. “It’s been a stressful week.”

“Hey!” the officer trying to herd Hux barks. “Enough of that. Stay back please, sir.”

“Oh, sod off,” Hux snaps, pulling out of his grasp. “Did your mother fuck a buffalo or just her cousin?”

“Sir—“

“Pardon me, it’s simply difficult to tell based on your vacant expression. Oh! _Was_ the buffalo her cousin?”

“Okay, okay, that’s enough out of you.” The officer shoves him none too gently against the hood of the van while Kylo watches, helpless to do anything except that while Hux receives his own restraints and is pushed down in the grass next to him.

“Now shut up and behave yourself,” the officer directs. “Or I’m charging you with interference.”

Hux scoffs. “Interference, oh heavens, I’m _quaking._ Please, do take pity on me, sir.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Kylo hisses at him in an undertone. “The whole point was for you _not_ to get arrested. Don’t you have a record? Priors? Warrants?”

“What the fuck are _you_ doing, you great berk?” he hisses back, unrepentant. Scowling. “We could have gotten away.”

He glares. “Well, excuse me, I didn’t want to add 'aiding and abetting a wanted felon’ to your resumé.” 

Hux blinks, surprised. Seeing, maybe, what he means. Then, recovers: “A _bit_ late for that, don’t you think?”

“That’s different,” Kylo says. “It’s not like you had a choice in getting mixed up with me. I sort of kidnapped you, remember?”

“That was before,” Hux reminds him. “I do have a choice now. I’m choosing. I’ve chosen.”

It’s difficult to ignore the way his throat constricts, but he pushes past it. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t risk it. Something—happening.” _To you_ , he doesn’t say.

Hux frowns, taking this in, maybe hearing it anyway. His voice goes rough when he says, “If I’d known what you had planned, I would have—“

There’s movement along the street. They’ll separate them soon. Take Kylo into custody. Hopefully, let Hux go. And after that, who knows when. If. He doesn’t.

“Done what?” Kylo asks. Hurried. “What would you have done? If you’d known?”

“Just this.” Hux leans over to kiss him, hard, their teeth almost knocking together.

It’s awkward without use of their hands—the angle is poor until Hux adjusts it, lips softening under his, pliant, before they part. “And to say,” he murmurs when they do, that wry half-smile on his face. “There’s a very good chance that I’ve fallen in love with you, you colossal _idiot_. Rather inconveniently, I might add, since you’ve gone and gotten yourself arrested.”

And then, too quickly, before he can respond, Kylo’s being hauled up, herded toward a squad car, and Hux led in the opposite direction, looking back at him over his shoulder, amused, smirking, at his shock. 

He stops, dazed, not resisting, just not moving, as this sinks in, despite the man pulling at his arm, urging him forward. “I—“ he says. " _Hux_." Twisting back now, earning curses. Tries, louder, so Hux can hear him. “Hux! I didn’t know.”

“Well, now you do, don’t you?” he calls back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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> Thanks for reading! <3


	4. Coda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo prepares for what's next.

_“And today in election news, Senator Leia Organa of California has once again indicated that she has not yet decided if she will seek the Democratic nomination for 2020. Speculation regarding the Senator’s indecision suggests that her connection to last year’s First Order Industries federal investigation has weakened her polling numbers. However, per our data, Organa_ has _remained a popular choice among moderate and progressive voters for her firm stance during the proceedings, despite the involvement of her son, Ben Solo. Solo is currently serving a minimum sentence in Lompoc after pleading guilty to—“_

“Hey, Snap, would you mind changing that?” Kylo asks. He’s not watching it exactly, is spending his rec time reading or trying to read. But it’s difficult to focus right now. To sit still. And it isn't helping.

“Sure thing, Kylo.” The big man, the closest thing he has to a friend here, switches the channel to the Food Network. Studies the hazy screen for a moment. “Amelia has _got_ to get her fondant right. That’s a dry mess.”

“It’s gonna crack,” Salty says.

“It’s _definitely_ gonna crack.”

Kylo tunes out the rest of the conversation. Reads the same sentence from his book half a dozen times before he gives up. It’s not uninteresting—Berman’s _Lady Las Vegas_ , a gift from Uncle Lando—but it keeps kicking him back to eleven months ago, to seeing Hux across the table for the first time, to Delilah’s and Phasma in her uniform, to the Voyager rolling out into the desert. He’s had occasion to think on those ten days often enough for the past three hundred or so. How large they loom in contrast with what preceded and followed them. The mountains. The green foothills in Montana. The sky, night after night, like he’d never seen it.

He thought about it often, too, during his trial and hearing: found it at the center of him without trouble, cool and quiet, when he needed it. After he expressed his willingness to cooperate, turned over his own files and records, the proceedings had moved quickly, dizzyingly so. He testified in front of the investigatory committee twice; he answered their questions as thoughtfully as he could, embellished the truth little, his temper dampened. _Stoic_ was never a word he thought he’d hear applied to himself, let alone by the national media, but apparently that was how he came across, hair and suit neat, sitting up straight, hands folded, voice steady, recounting his role in Snoke’s dealings, neither defending nor excusing himself. _I knew better. I did._  

_Thank you for your candor, Mr. Solo._

Still, he would have been implicated in much more, Snoke’s manipulations more extensive than he'd known, if some of the First Order’s private documents hadn’t been leaked in the middle of it all. He still doesn’t know who or how, and he hadn’t dared to meet his mother’s eyes in the gallery that day—she attended every hearing, her expression unreadable to everyone but him—but he had caught Poe’s. Didn’t miss his wink.

He hasn’t asked her about it, not in all the times she’s come to see him, forty-four visits over the past eleven months, more than they’ve seen each other in the previous six years. _You’re different_ , she had said that first afternoon, sitting in the visitor's room, without preamble. 

 _Yeah. Yeah, I am._ He hadn’t explained beyond that, and she hadn’t asked. They sat together, barely talking after this exchange, both of them uncomfortable. But he recognized the look in her eyes. Thought she understood the same from his. Hoped. She came almost every week that followed, not demanding he speak with her, sometimes just sitting like that, although they eased over time, both the conversations and the silences. _I thought you were gone_ , she admitted one Saturday, the two of them remembering the night he called, the night they talked. _Lost_. _Hearing your voice, it—_

Leia brought him books, too, once he expressed a desire for them, mostly from her own collection after she finished them. It was an easy way to pass the time, and, to his surprise, he found he liked discussing them with her. They didn’t agree on much, argued plenty; the week he finished _Churchill_ : _A Study in Greatness_ , the guards threatened to revoke his visiting _and_ reading privileges. She favored biographies, overall; his father sent him more Jack London, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck; Uncle Lando preferred general nonfiction, while Uncle Luke offered him philosophy; and Uncle Chewie exclusively gave him poetry. He hadn’t expected to like the poems as much as he did, but there were no few of them about the Southwest, and he found himself asking for any books about the region in particular. Not tiring of them.

 _You got a taste for the desert, huh, kiddo?_  Han asked him on one of his visits. They were rarer than Leia’s, his father’s unease apparent as he sat across from Kylo. How he kept staring at his jumpsuit, how his voice faltered, that familiar wincing around his eyes.

 _I guess so_ , he’d shrugged. He hadn’t been able to explain to anyone what it had been like, that trip through the mountains. But none of them pressed him for answers, even Leia accepting it when he said, _I don’t know_. There had been a time when he could only growl that phrase in anger and frustration, but it left him gently now. _I don't know._  

What he does know: the color of the sky over the scrublands at dawn; the quality of the air when there’s nothing around for miles; the immensity of a mountain standing over him, ancient, massive, indifferent; the feeling of a lover tucked under his arm on a cold night, the stars brilliant above them; the perfect confidence of listening to a friend across a campfire, being heard in return; and the particular rumbling purr of a small ginger cat reverberating against his chest. It’s lingered with him all these months, everything he knows, unhampered by concrete and wire. 

 _You’ll call_ , Leia said last week. _When you know where you’ll be and what you’ll be doing_. Not asking what his plans are, not insisting he _have_ a plan. Not mentioning the programs he should look into or telling him where to go, not saying any of that. Only: _you’ll keep us updated?_

 _I will, Mom. I promise_. Then he raised an eyebrow at her. Challenging her in a way he never would have once. _But what are_ you _going to do?_

He received a wry smile in response, her eyes glittering. _Maybe I don’t know, Kylo_. _Have you considered that?_

Their conversation turned to other things then, but when they said goodbye, and he leaned down to kiss her cheek, he murmured, _For what it’s worth, I think you should do it._

_Give ‘em hell, Mom._

“Got about an hour, Kylo,” Pava, one of the guards he likes, calls from the doorway. “Better get your stuff and say your goodbyes.”

He isn’t keeping much from his time here, has given away most of his books and the other small luxuries he kept in his cubicle. Hasn’t made many in the way of friends either, only one or two people to offer farewells, good wishes. He earned a reputation for keeping to himself early on. Last month, in the cafeteria, he overheard Salty telling one of the new guys, _Oh yeah, that’s Kylo. Scary big dude, right? But he doesn’t bother anybody. Real quiet. He’s all right._

No, he has very little left to do. But there is the matter of the photographs.

He doesn’t know how many there are total, stuck to the concrete wall with putty; Phasma sent at least one with every letter, sometimes more. Some of them are from a year ago. A rainy morning in Idaho and a Nevada sunset and the fog rolling across the mountain tops. Millicent sprawled on the passenger seat, showing the paler fur of her stomach. Rest stops and campsites. Phasma herself pulling a face at the camera.

Him and Hux asleep in the back of the Voyager, Hux nestled in his arms, the unguarded expression on his face. Content. 

He hadn’t put that on the wall. Kept it in his battered copy of _Call of the Wild,_ safeguarded under his pillow.

There were those since then, too, from the past year. Places he doesn’t recognize and has never been. Pine trees. Hills. A small town tucked between them. _Another fucking diner_ , Phasma wrote on the back of one. There was Hux, too, in a mechanic’s jumpsuit, rolling his eyes at the camera. Sitting on a sofa, reading, with Millicent in his lap. In the driver’s seat of a car. Phasma reclining in the grass. Standing at a grill in a backyard somewhere. The two of them on a trail, in jeans and hiking boots, blue mountains in the background. _Wish you were here_ , on the back of that one. And under it: _Dipshit twisted his ankle again_.

Kylo plucks them down one by one, admiring them before sliding them into a fat manila envelope. The letters, most of them, are already in there. Some are from his family—Uncle Luke, in particular, had written him often from the monastery instead of visiting. But most of them are from Hux and Phasma. Phasma’s more perfunctory, in her distinctive, spiky handwriting, recounting what they did and when, offering weekly progress reports on both Hux and Millie. _Millicent: eating well, absolute terror to the rodent population, menace to the upholstery, in imminent danger of being evicted_. _Armitage: off his feed again, absolute terror to absolutely everyone, currently in another sulk, in imminent danger of being smothered._

Under that: _He misses you, Kylo._

Hux’s didn’t write to him as regularly. Sometimes he received three letters in a week, others none at all. Postcards. Ten-page diatribes. There was a whole packet of them when he began his sentence, observations from his trial, about which Hux knew more than Kylodid. Annotations on the proceedings: _prosecutor is a daft cunt; you look damn good in a suit, wanted to peel it off you; ethics committee has clearly never met an ethic_. More reflective: _I don’t think I ever met him, this person everyone’s talking about. Maybe that first day, maybe that idiot sitting across me at the poker table, but I’m not sure. They don’t know him, though, the beautiful moron who dragged us across three states and offered us a place to live like it was nothing, like it didn’t mean everything—and good, I’m glad they don't. I’m disinclined to share in general; you ought to know that._

He wrote about what they were doing, he and Phasma, about his community service sentence after his altercation with the Montana state police. He told Kylo about getting his mechanic’s certification, about Phasma taking night classes. He sent him pages detailing Millie’s accomplishments. _The cleverest cat in feline history, naturally_. Letters, too, complaining about writing letters. _You’ve got me writing to everyone now. I sent two to my mum last week and another to Rey. I'm beginning to feel I’m in an Edwardian novel and it’s all your fault, you_ _prick_ _._

True to form, Hux wasn’t above torturing him, even in print. _I know they read everything we send you, so I will refrain from saying anything that might require censorship_ , he noted. Then proceeded to, somehow, in the most graphic terms possible, describe an engine rebuild he had done recently, how much work it had been, how taxing, etc. Kylo hadn’t been able to look Han in the eye the next time they discussed cars.

His favorite letters from Hux, though, were the quiet ones, like something taken from a journal, private, letters that made him think of sitting under the stars and talking until the moon climbed high above them, their voices soft in the evening air. _It seems impossible that any of it could be real_ , Hux told him. _Or that it should matter so much, any of it. That it still matters._ _Although it does, Kylo. It does_.

Pava calls his name again. Kylo bundles up the rest of it, the letters and the photographs and that worn Jack London novel, and goes to the front. Another officer returns his clothes; he steps into the jeans and shrugs on his shirt, imagining he can smell a trace of mountain them, campfire smoke. Dust still clings to his sneakers. The guard hands him the rest of his belongings—his wallet, a stray poker chip, a dog tag—in a small paper bag.

He leaves the prison, gray and nondescript, behind him, not sparing a glance back. He weathered it as well as he could, has few regrets. Knows, too, that he was extraordinarily lucky, that it could have been so much worse, that he could have been there for the duration. It’s in part a function of who he is, who his family is, that he can leave today. He means for it to be the last time he uses it, the family name, the last time the name _Ben Solo_ means a damn thing to anyone. _I’m looking forward to starting a new life_ , _becoming a different person_ , he told the parole committee, as he was supposed to, the lines expected and rote, but he meant it, too. 

The California sun glints against the chainlink fence.

Kylo lets out a breath when he reaches the parking lot.

It’s impossible to miss: that russet and cream van, its snub nose and boxy frame. Phasma is leaning against it, wearing a leather jacket over her sweater, sunglasses perched on her head. “Armitage,” she drawls, catching sight of him. “Is it me or do we know this ne’er-do-well?”

Hux straightens, coming into view. His smile sends warmth fluttering through Kylo’s chest. His hair’s a little different from the last photo, shorter on the sides and longer on top. He’s wearing a light blue button-up over a pair of dark jeans, both of which hug the sharp lines of him, and there’s that, too, that immediate punch of _want_ that leaves him lightheaded. 

“He _does_ look familiar, Phas,” Hux agrees. “D’you suppose he’s that tosser who promised us a stay at his place in Montana?”

She taps her lips, theatrical. “I believe you’re right. The very one. Never made good on that promise, did he? Got himself nicked before he could take us there. Disappointing, that. I hear the hills up that way are simply breathtaking.”

“Bit rubbish of him, really,” Hux says, voice dry, prolonging this a moment more before he relents. Hurries to close the last few steps between them as Kylo reaches the Voyager. Not quite leaping into his arms, but he growls his approval when Kylo catches him around the waist and hauls him close, the two of them clutching at each other. “Hello there, stranger,” he says, low in his ear.

“Hi,” Kylo says. His hands are trembling. “Been a while.”

“It has.” Hux leans back to study him, frowning. “Okay?”

“Yeah.” He buries his face in his neck, inhales against it, steadying himself. “Yeah. Just. You’re here.” _You’re really here._ _It really happened_ , he doesn’t say. 

Hux seems to hear it anyway, as he does. He smooths a hand over his hair, calming. “‘course we’re here,” he snorts. “You owe us a ride.”

Kylo laughs before he kisses him, long, hard, affirming, as he does, his own memories. The taste of his lips. How soft they are. The way he opens under him, licks back into his mouth. _It really happened_.

“All right, all right,” Phasma says. “That is sufficient publicly displayed affection.”

Hux shows her his two favorite fingers and kisses him for a beat longer, circling both arms around his neck as he does.

“If you think I won’t hit you with Millicent’s spray bottle, Armitage, you are sorely mistaken,” she warns. “You're an adult. You can keep your tongue out of Kylo until we get to the hotel.”

He pulls back, surprised. “Hotel?”

“Mhm,” Hux confirms. Settles for keeping one arm wrapped around him and pressing against his side. Although he _does_ slip a hand into his back pocket. “Phasma insisted on making _plans_. She’s a right bossy harridan,” he confides loudly.

“And you’re an ungrateful little shit,” she replies, affection warming her voice. “It’s good to see you, Kylo.” 

“Thank you,” Kylo tells her. Pulling her in for a one-armed hug. Although he’s not quite willing to let go of Hux, even for that, and instead draws her into the two of them. She squeezes his shoulders once before stepping away again. “Thank you for looking after him,” he adds. “And for your letters. They—helped.”

“I’m astonished they passed inspection,” Hux interjects. “She has the penmanship of a serial murderer.” He curses when Phasma flicks him lightly on the ear.

Kylo shakes his head, laughing. Turns his attention to the Voyager. “I can’t believe my Dad loaned you this.”

“Actually.” Hux pulls out the keys and presents them to him with a degree of solemnity. “He gave it to us. For you. He said to ‘take care of the old girl’ or something insufferably folksy like that.”

“He made Armitage do a twelve-part course in maintenance,” Phasma says.

“I’ve seen things,” he deadpans. “Terrible, wonderful things.”

There’s a flicker at the passenger window as Kylo admires the van. A familiar ginger face swims into view, and a pair of pink paws splay against the glass. “Is that Millie? She’s gotten so big.”

“Incidentally, that seems to be what happens to half-grown strays when you feed them,” Phasma says and rounds the side of the van, climbing into the back seat. “But enough chitchat and reminiscing and whatnot, let’s get the hell out of here. Unless you’d prefer to stay on federal property?”

“Be right there,” Kylo calls. Although he doesn’t immediately follow. Shifts his grip on Hux, tugging him close again, tightening his hands around his waist, feeling him, firm and solid under him. Dips his chin to meet his eyes, the color of a northern sea. “You two really did all this? For me?”

“Mhm.” Hux seems, for his part, as unwilling to release Kylo. Clenches his hands in his shirt before he kisses him again, more gently now, then nudges Kylo’s nose with his own. Brings their foreheads together for a moment. The light catches on his eyelashes afterward. “We rather like you, you know. Against our better judgment.”

“I love you,” Kylo murmurs.

“I know,” Hux says. Smug. “You wrote to say so every week. But I still told you first.”

“You did.”

Behind them, Phasma leans on the horn, and Kylo startles. Scowls at her.

Hux laughs. “Come on.” He takes him by the hand, leading him towards the Voyager and whatever’s next. “We have a trip to finish.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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